


The Cursed Royals

by ConflictOfHearts



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Game of Thrones (Video Game 2014), Game of Thrones RPF
Genre: Abandonment, F/M, Her name is Lyarra Targaryen, Her name is Visenya Targaryen, Her name is Visenya Waters, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Jon Snow is a girl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConflictOfHearts/pseuds/ConflictOfHearts
Summary: King Rhaegar ruled the realm, with just, and honor, songs, and tourneys, pride, and prizes. In the sixteen years of his peaceful rule, he had slightly forgot to worry about the Visenya for whom he had brought the realms to bleed. Raised by her uncle, Lyarra knew little about the lies and secrets of the court. When she came with a quest to know the truth, she uncovers the most tragic tale that would shake the realm. And to survive, Lyarra began playing the game, for there was no middle ground when you play the game of thrones.
Relationships: Aegon VI Targaryen/Original Female Character(s), Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Jon Snow/Aegon VI Targaryen, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Comments: 251
Kudos: 250





	1. The Putrid Princess

Lutes, trumpets, and horns thundered the cold air around, leaving the soil between my toes to tremble. For every beat on the barrel, for every whisper of laughter, for every verse of the song, my heart tripled to beat fast—for reasons that I didn’t know or bothered to be aware of. I focused on the task at hand. I tried to focus on the best of my ability. My fingers began to cut through the ironwood branch, eyes stinging and throat gnawing when the feeling slowly seeped into me that I was the one left behind from the feast.

It wasn’t something new for me to whine about. It had been this way for more than a decade where I was the one thrown out of the threshold, while my mother’s family celebrated a feast. Not that I complained about it. Being a ward of my uncle, I was under his protection, and so, I had all the rights to barge in those doors and make my way to the high table, to sup with my cousins, and gossip about the gallant knights.

I was a Princess by rights and honors. Would anyone deny my presence or disallow me to participate?

Even the trout woman could only boil and simmer in rage, but not open her mouth to throw me out. I had some power, poor-piss as it might be, it was something that came with my birth.

_My birth!!!_

Oh, for the destruction I brought to these lands and people, with my birth, it became both my curse and boon.

They hated me. The fat Lord Wyman Manderly, the pale-eyed Lord Roose Bolton, the giant lord Jon Umber—everyone hated my birth. Or more precisely, what they had to sacrifice for my birth. Often times, I wondered about the curse I carried. Could my father have known all this? Could my father have understood the mistake he made by bringing forth to this world? Was that why he threw me away to the people he fought with blood and vengeance?

I could only wonder what he’d planned when he left with my mother. Or what he’d thought when only I remained alive amongst us both. _He should be hating me! He definitely loathes me for killing my mother!_

King Rhaegar Targaryen, first of his name, ruled the Seven Kingdoms, sitting on the iron throne that had killed the Mad King. To what extent it was true, I couldn’t be certain. Because there was a weird song that Sansa sang about a tainted knight who could have killed the Mad King. What the Old Maester Luwin taught me, and Robb and Sansa was the truth. The Mad King died by pierced on all sides by the barbed throne, just like Maegor the Cruel. I, Lyarra Targaryen, was sent out to thaw and freeze my heart in this cold lands, just so my father didn’t need to see the murderer of his beloved mistress Lyanna Stark.

I wondered what my cousins would be doing inside, as I chiseled the pointed edge of the arrow, with the sharp blade that I owned. Robb, my cousin, who was almost like a brother to me, would probably be recollecting the sigils, houses, and their words, while every lord and lady of the North would be vying to take advantage of his gullibility to put their daughter beside him.

Lady Catelyn would be encouraging him to have a dance with those pretty ladies, just to charm those lords’ eyes, even when she would not be deeming them right for her son’s stature and power. She would crave for a bigger house with greater wealth and a magnificent army.

I get her, truly. I never understood why she despised me or often chided me, finding fault in everything I did in the beginning. Now, though, as I grew up from being a child that craved for honey cakes to a girl who craved for recognition, I learned the laws of the land where fighting to survive was important than being loved.

Lord Stark would differ, though. He taught me about honor; he taught me about justice; he taught me about family and being in the pack; he taught me about rules and laws that every man was bound to follow, although at times I wondered if he was just bidding time to put that long sword, Ice, across my neck and take my life for once and all when my King Father would do something to displease him.

I knew that Lord Stark hated the crown. He loathed King Rhaegar, and every time he went for bringing justice in the crown’s name, he would whiff out my father’s name like tasting poison on his tongue. Neither Ned Stark nor the folks of the North had any love for the crown. The only thread that bound them to the crown was _me_. And I bore that burden like cattle would bear its whippings from a master, or a horse that would pull a loaded cart.

I wanted to remove the burden of bringing the ill-favor, but I had no idea of how to do it. I think I would die carrying my mother’s sin. Lady Lyanna wasn’t spared. The whole realm lashed at her dead bones for running away with a married man and giving a bastard to him.

_Yes, I am a bastard!_

_My given name was Visenya Waters, until King Rhaegar legitimized me upon claiming the throne in front of the courts and courtiers, the rebels and loyalists, the friends and enemies, and proclaimed me as Visenya Targaryen._

Lord Stark refused to call me Visenya, nor would he allow anyone in the household to call me Visenya. He named me Lyarra, for the love that he carried for both his mother and sister. That was a sweet gesture, I was sure, but the folks of the North hated the name ‘Lya’, for my mother had brought blood and death to their doors.

I loved her though. However wrong she might be, she was my mother, who died giving birth to me. And I wished she lived to shower love or sing a lullaby to put me to sleep or brush my dark brown hair like Lady Catelyn brushed Sansa’s auburn hair or tell what it was to love or being loved.

“What is worse, Visenya?” The barbed tongue of my nightmare knight plunged in the air along with the wine and ale stench that was going to make me spill my guts out. “To be a bastard or to be a Princess?”

I refused to meet his emerald eyes and give him the satisfaction of victory by showing how much I was hurt by those simple words. I still hadn’t gotten around how my King Father had put trust in this man who was everything a knight shouldn’t be. “Is there something worse than being exiled from your own home and rot in cold lands just to protect a child?” I asked, and the knight simmered. I loved jabbing him with both words and swords. He resented being sent off to protect me, being far away from the sunlit south to this cold North. He resented having to be far away from the lands he knew and learned. Basically, he resented me. “Oh, you must forgive me! How could I be so wrong? Wasn’t it the child who saved you from being stabbed in the woods? Could you even set one thing right, Ser Jaime?“

Although he was calm and quiet, I knew he would be brewing an insult in his head, with another of his barbed comment. He taught me to fight. If one could call abandoning a seven-year-old child in the mountains, to become fearless, and beating her with wooden clubs till she surrendered to become resilient as a proper way to teach. Lord Stark had condemned him, repulsed, and regretted his existence, and I was sure the golden knight had also been waiting for my uncle to pick the sword and fight, but I doubted if anyone would do anything without risking another war.

“You are lucky that I have drunk myself to death, today. Else… I will cut through you like chopping meat.” Ser Jaime warned and sat beside me, leaning on my shoulder for support. I glared at him. There were proprieties that had to be followed, even if I was a tainted Princess or a Royal bastard. If anyone saw him lingering on me with such ease, they would give birth to an imaginary child of mine just with their slanders. Jaime gave a lopsided grin, knowing how this was annoying me. “Oh, don’t be a prude! That quality is reserved for the true-born children. If you are willing, I could even show you a world filled with nothing but pleasures. Every woman has praised my skill in bed.“

“You mean the whores.” I said, with a proud smirk, knowing well about his affinities to the pleasure houses he visited frequently. “Toss them a coin, Ser Jaime, they would even call you a King. The last thing you should trust is a word that comes out of a whore.“

“There was a woman, once, in my life.” He admitted with a distant voice, eyes staring at the starry sky. He was drunk. He thought, expressing feelings to be vulnerabilities. And if he was telling me about a woman, he was truly drunk to recover. “She said I was her sun and moon, thief and knight, and she wanted nothing other than my cock in her cunt.” He smiled to himself. “I wonder if she remembers me now.“

Although his words were crude and disgusting, his eyes were glossing with pain. I never knew he had loved someone or if he was even capable of love. He was a prick here in the North, dueling and sparring with anyone who came to the courtyard and laughing at their misery when they would fail and fall. I had not got an inkling of like for him. He was rude, arrogant, stupid, and selfish. Never did I think even he could love or that someone could love him back. “Is that why you hate me?” I asked, and his perfect golden brows lifted in a curve with wonder. “Did you hate me because you have to leave your lover and come here to protect me?“

“Hate you?” He shook his head. “You are the rock that keeps me grounded on earth. Why will I hate you?“

He should be blubbering with alcohol in his head. He definitely hated me. It wasn’t exactly lovely, with affection oozing when he would laugh out of my miseries, or dragged me anywhere he went, or called me with ridiculous names, or beat the shit out of me in the fighting pit.

“You hated me, bastard” He whispered and leaned his head against the trunk of the tree behind. “Had I not roused you, you would have hated the world. So, I allowed you to hate me before you ended up hating yourself.“

The music began dulling from my ears, and I stopped scratching the wood to perfection. I focused on my breathing, on the surrounding wind, and the sound of blood pumping to my heart.

I thought about the days he had chased me in the horse rides. Mostly he would take me out when there was a harvest feast happening in the Hall. I had often thought he had been meaning to ridicule me in front of the small folks. It had never occurred to me that he was saving my face from the gossips of the town folks.

_No! That can’t be true!_

None of it explained why he would beat me up in the courtyard. I began swimming into the memories of when he would throw the sword at me and call me for a fight. And in all those memories I appeared with a sour face and trembling lips, eyes red with unshed tears. I swung the wooden blade to beat him to a pulp. As much as I blame him now, for often throwing me on mud, and laughing at my failure, I clearly remember how much I craved to stab him. And I had tried. With all my heart and soul, anger and rage, burning from every muscle in the body to throw him down and stab his heart to see if it was rotting with worms.

_But what if, what if he is telling the truth?_

“You are lying!” I convinced myself. “You are lying now that I dared to question you.“

Ser Jaime chuckled, his hands folded against his chest, eyelids closed as he kept dwindling down into a slumber. “Perhaps!” He admitted, and I tried to relieve my worry. I couldn’t fathom to think I was wrong with my feelings about him, after all these years. It was hard to envision myself, to not hate him. It wasn’t news that I hated him. The whole of Winterfell knew my feelings for him, and I even wondered if my King Father had been aware of it.

_I allowed you to hate me before you ended up hating yourself!_

I swallowed that punching pain in my guts and tried hard to not let the tears roll down. I couldn’t cry. Especially not in front of him. He would… He would… take me to the courtyard and throw a sword at me, and _mock_ me.

_Oh God!!!_

Could it be? Could it be that he was taking me to the courtyard and allowing me to fight him? Could it be that he was giving me a chance to vent out the anger that bubbled inside of me? No… Definitely not! I should be exaggerating his drunken stupor to be anything more than what it was. I was more than sure that he was going to drag me to the mountain top tomorrow. It was what he did after a common feast. I had hated him for troubling me. I had hated him for giving the terrible blisters and swelling ache to my legs. I had hated him for…

 _I hated him!_ Not the lords, not my King Father, nor my dead mother, not the Lord Stark or the Lady Stark or my cousins.

“I was so scared!” I whispered, looking down.

“I never left you alone.” He mumbled like a faint whisper. “I was right behind you!“

I stared at him, but he said nothing more, already passing out from the heavy alcohol. I didn’t have any words to thank him or I couldn’t decide if I should be thanking him.

It wasn’t easy to live here, even though I had kept telling myself that it would be better, the next day. Lady Catelyn’s maiden house had lost a lot in the war and so she hated me rigorously with passion. Most of the household guards and the servants weren’t especially kind to me, for the same reason that their fathers and husbands and brothers went to grave due to my mother’s and father’s love.

I still remembered when one of the guards swung a blade at me, to cut my little finger because he had lost all the ten fingers of his foot in the war. He had roughly cut the tip of my little finger when I was four years old and he would have cut my whole finger, if not for Ser Jaime’s sword. I vividly remember how the ladies of the smaller houses would call me a “Cursed Princess” behind my back. I stopped attending feasts because of them. The old dressmaker, Chylla, had applied Poison Ivy on my silk dress that made my body turn purple. The Maester even said I would die miserably within two days. The dressmaker had been widowed because of the war and had lost one of her sons in the war. She had said, “An eye for an eye!” when she was brought to court. I had pitied her even when she had tried to kill me.

It took someone to venture into the wild woods to bring the herbs to counter the poison. I wondered if it was Ser Jaime who had gone into the woods at night for me. Now that I see him dozing beside me, even when the whole castle was rejoicing in merriment, here on this abandoned side where the Old Gods resided, I realized the truth. He came for me. He had been always there for me at all times, and I had been annoyed by his persistence to hurt me that I never looked beyond his mask.

I felt numb from the pains.

I felt robbed of the truth.

I felt cheated by the reality.

I had only known to hate Ser Jaime, and now with this reality, I wasn’t sure what I would do without that hatred.

I rose, dragging his rattling golden armored hand, and he possessively wound his hand around my waist, instantly scanning the Godswoods, his other hand going to the hilt of his golden sword.

He was searching for an intruder, possibly threatened by my approach to wake him up. I had never woken him up. If I would find him drunk and wasted, I had made sure to bury him in the snow rather to offer a blanket. Sometimes, I had even thrown snowballs at his head when he would not be seeing me. What would that make of me?

“Are you fine?” He howled, dragging my body close to his own warmth, still searching all-around for enemies.

“You had no rights!” I screamed, pushing his scaled armor, that my palm was sliced by the sharp edges, and began bleeding. He was rattled with my anger and his forehead scrunched together in layers, looking down at me. “It was mine!” I howled. “You had no rights to take my burden. The burden and pain and anger were all mine. And you definitely had no right to make me hate you.“

He must have blubbered the truth in the drunken stupor, and now that he was awakened like a fresh dew, his cheeks began heating up red. Would he have hidden the truth until one of us died?

“Why should you have to be the martyr? We could have been friends. We could have been much and more if you had not let me think…“

He leaned down and tipped my chin up with his forefinger to stare at my gray eyes. He had allowed his golden hair to grow longer, and for a moment I wondered if this was how her King Father looked like. No one could doubt Ser Jaime was handsome. Sansa often would become a puddle when he crossed her. He looked just like how Kings would be said in songs and because I hadn’t seen how my Father looked like, I wanted to believe this was close to how he might be.

“Don’t cry!” He whispered, leaning down, and his breath was filled with cloved wine and spiced ale. His soft lips pressed against my cheeks and I shivered when he wiped the saltwater with just his lips. “I have regretted doing many things, Lyarra. But I never regretted being a martyr for you. And I would do it again, even if it has to be done a thousand times.“

He wasn’t fine. Something was wrong with him, and his voice was almost close to sorrow when he walked back staggering like a fool, with crisscrossed legs. I wanted to brew my hatred for him, just for tricking me, but I ran to him and pulled his hand over my shoulder to help him to his chambers, hoping that no one would find it compromising.

I forgave him for lying but I couldn’t forgive the one person at whom my wrath was aimed at.

_King Rhaegar Targaryen!_


	2. Tears of Joy

There was a reason why only humans were blessed with the ability to laugh and cry. It was for emoting our emotions. And if we didn’t, then what difference we would make with dragons, and wolves, and lions, and stags?

Ghost, my two-year-old wolf, tilted her head, the red eyes menacing at my accusation to call her a feral wild thing. It was the truth. Though we had wolf pups, and though we had been so close with them like brothers and sisters, we were different. As Ghost grew stronger and bigger, I’d been fighting with her to keep her grounded, rather to pounce on any stranger at whom I felt discomfort. Sansa’s Lady was so gentle, and even Arya’s Nymeria which had brown hair matted with packed soil was playful and happy, unlike my Ghost.

Ghost was different from its littermates, as like me, but not in a unique, nice way that people would want to pet. It would often snarl and snap, and sometimes even I’d need to back off rather than calming her. No matter what, Ghost couldn’t cry.

Jaime would call crying men as ‘cunts’. I never saw Lord Stark cry, not even when he would sit for hours in that Godswoods, and whisper apologies to the dead men he had taken to war. When we were young, me and Robb would sneak up to him from behind to rattle and frighten him, but we were much more frightened at his raspy voice that would mutter a variety of names who’d been dead and long-buried.

The cost of war!

I’d learned that it took a part of him. He had never smiled either, at least, not that I knew. Robb had once said, “Men don’t cry like women”. That was stupid. I guess men hid it well, while women didn’t. I’d seen Robb cry several hundred times. Only recently, he’d begun walking as though his chest was made of armor and it would never hurt him, even if a rusted arrow would plunge into his heart.

I wasn’t going to pretend that I’d no pain. I had anger, malice, vengeance, and more importantly rage. Sometimes, all I could do was cry when I’d let all those feelings stew inside my mind. But today, I’d gathered up my courage and wrote down all my feelings in a parchment.

Addressing and directing it to my King Father. He’d taken my mother from her family. He’d sired me. He’d gone for a war over all the noble houses. All for what? For me! Wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the reason, the whole of North, unanimously hated me? But then, he’d left me here as though he forgot I even existed. In all the sixteen years, I’d been waiting for his one missive, enquiring if I was doing well. I’d never forgot to send missives to my father or my half-siblings, hoping one day they’d remember me and reply. But I received nothing from the capital.

Sometimes it was so embarrassing to think I was the one begging them to look at me. Not this time. This will be the last missive, and I will forget that I had some family, if King Rhaegar forgets to provide a response.

When Ghost jerked her head to the door, already aware of a new member’s presence, I stared down between her eyes, rather than allowing her to pounce on the person at the door. Old Nan and Hodor were knocked down several times, and I’d no more excuses to make them quiet. Ghost bowed angrily and took a spot behind me when the door opened. “Are you going to parade naked into the Great Hall?” Sansa giggled, looking at my towel wrapped body.

“I would do just that to find fun in your mother’s horror.”

Sansa frowned, glaring at me just like how I glared at the wolves. “The Septa tells that we should never be late and laziness isn’t appreciated. Why don’t you get dressed?”

“You borrowed my maid, Sansa. I should be the one to condemn you.”

Sansa smiled, her teeth not visible at all. It was just the perfect amount that the Septa would ask to use while having a sensible conversation. But nothing about me was sensible. “I am sorry. I troubled her a lot, and she ran away.” Sansa blushed and moved to pick the dress that was set for testing. “Oh, you ruined it!” She shrilled, seeing the liquid in which the edge of the cloth was immersed. Prying away the woolen cloth, I squeezed the handful of it in the corner.

“The liquid will turn red if the cloth would have any poison.” I murmured, and Sansa made confusing faces as to why I would do such a thing. It had become a habit for me, to be always prepared. I still fed my food to the crows that’d visit my windows before I consumed for myself. I didn’t want to be poisoned again. Rather than explaining all my insecurities, I began tying the corset, and Sansa naturally moved to help me. “So, tell me, what did you do to Mya?”

Sansa was fourteen now, and every time she blushed, I felt embarrassed about not being able to bring any shame in my body. It was so natural on her and she fit in this place, as though she was born with it, unlike me. Did I tell how beautiful she was? With auburn hair and blue eyes, a gentle voice, and a lovely smile, she was what every man would want in a woman.

“Oh, it is nothing!” Sansa insisted. “Mya said she had known Lord Waymar Royce, and I only allowed her to meet and greet. Although she promised that she would tell Ser Waymar to stop going to the Night’s Watch and marry me, already.” Sansa gulped as she tightened the knots of my dress, and she almost appeared pale. “She won’t tell. Will she? My mother would kill me if she learns that I said such profane things.”

Profane?? Just for fawning over a boy? I snickered, shaking my head. Mya was her own person and nothing would stop her if she had put her mind on. Besides, Lady Stark would never hurt Sansa. She was perfect to be hated, even for me. I could only boil in jealousy, not hatred.

“I won’t, my lady!” Mya entered my chambers, with a boisterous laughter that was reserved only for her. Ghost jumped on Mya, but unlike others, she tackled the beast to the floor, giving a tight slap to its head, and Ghost backed away from Mya. Sansa shrieked, her hands clasping her mouth shut. Mya only laughed, her easy smile contaminating the chamber. “Don’t worry, Lady Sansa. Ghost often plays with me that way. She doesn’t mean any harm.”

I doubted that, but Mya was never the one to cower, and so, I guess Ghost got along with her.

“Have you given the letter to Lord Stark?” Mya questioned me.

“Yes! I even said it would be the last letter that I would send to my father, and if he refuses to respond, I will never even bother to send another one.” I was determined.

“Well, let us make one promise at a time. We both know how unlikely for you to stick to your own words. You lie like you take a piss.” She managed to stifle a laugh, and I joined in her folly. All the more, Sansa simply gawked looking at our weird faces. Perhaps we both bastards were not making sense for her. If not for the fact that I was a Princess, Sansa wouldn’t have even bothered to speak with me. Although I should be ashamed, I’d taken pride when telling the war tales that my father had won, when were children. Sansa would cuddle up to me with dreamy eyes and tell, _“I want nothing more than to become a Princess.”_

“How did you know the Royce Lord?” I asked Mya, still contemplating if I should be joining the dinner. The Vale lords wouldn’t be any happier than the northern lords.

“I lived in the Eyrie for sometime before your father brought me here.”

With black hair, and broad shoulder, Mya was formidable, and it was a common gossip that she was a bastard child of some noble lord. I’d not been aware of who it was. Not before four years, Ned Stark had brought her to Winterfell. And as I was lonely and desolate, often screaming at Jaime, I guess he thought I needed a better company.

“Better you both ladies scurry away, your uncle has brought something special for you.” Mya waved her hand.

“Uncle?” I asked, already my fingers fretting. I didn’t know uncle Benjen was coming to Winterfell. And if he was coming to take horses and supplies, it was more likely that he brought a company at whom I didn’t want to look at. Usually, I skipped these small suppers and feasts, just to save my face, and I could even avoid it now.

But I was tired. So, so tired of running and hiding. I couldn’t hide anymore. I left straight to the Hall, chin up and straight chest to face the tide.

* * *

Grim, glum, and dark silence presided over the table, except for Ser Jaime’s nuisance way of slurping the stew.

“And pray tell me, what are you going to protect the Wall against?” Ser Jaime mocked.

“The Wildlings…” Ser Waymar answered, gloomily.

“Oh, I was worried that you will be fighting against the Others in their ice spiders and dead army.” Jaime snorted, returning to sup in a rejoicing mood than the rest. The young lord’s face had begun taking odd shapes of being ridiculed.

“And what great honor did the son of Tywin Lannister has brought?” Ser Waymar chuckled, his eyes directed over me. “The last I heard, running behind a woman’s skirt isn’t anything of greater deed than manning the Wall.“

I decided I disliked that boy. His haughtiness was all over the place and Lord Stark cleared his throat, politely warning Ser Waymar to tuck his tail between his legs.

Nothing of what my uncle would tell would make Jaime to keep his mouth tight-lipped. “Correct yourself. I am not running behind a woman’s skirt. It is a girl’s skirt. And the said girl is extremely capable of making you a woman, by cutting your cock, if you insult the Royal family one more time.“

Sansa gasped, hearing his crude words. I was so used to it that I didn’t feel any different. Arya laughed aloud, head swinging back in her chair, while Lady Catelyn’s eyes menacingly glowered on me.

I feared her then. She was capable of burning me down, and this wasn’t a good day to ruffle her feathers. Not when her brother was wearing a black sable cloak, its furs glistening with snow, reminding everyone on the table what House Tully had lost because of me. Perhaps I should have followed my instincts and remained in my chamber, taking Mya’s company.

“You dare to spar with me?” The young Royce lord bristled.

“I dare you to spar with the Princess. If I lift my sword, the Night’s Watch will lose one watchman to fight with their grumkins. When you grow up some balls, let me know. I will even tell her to spare your life.” Jaime mocked, still in amusement, his cockiness wearing off of me. I suppose he enjoyed troubling every lord who arrived in Winterfell.

“Enough!” Lord Stark bellowed, his sharp, harsh voice heating up the table. “I will not put up with uncouth words and honorless men on my table.” His burning gaze gauged at Ser Jaime.

Many might have missed seeing it, but I often found a cold war happening between the two men under whose protection I grew up. And Jaime often turned sour when Ned Stark would pass by him.

“Honor?” Ser Jaime bit out the word like swallowing poison, and for the first time, I wanted him to keep provoking others. Something happened in the past month between us, ever since he’d confessed that he was only trying to help me in his own way. For worst or best, I’d grown fond of our memories. To sit in Lord Stark’s hall and spit out venom at him might not be the best idea to keep head on our body. Jaime laughed like a madman. “How honorable are you, with teeth full of lies, Lord Stark?” His eyes darted towards me. “One day, when the truth would unveil, I will fight with your insufferable honor.”

He walked away, pushing and throwing the chairs to the floor, and I nibbled the last piece of the honey cake, managing to remain invisible amongst my mother’s family. No one raised any questions in Ser Jaime’s absence. In fact, the event moved as though none of it had happened right in front of the Lord’s presence.

Unlike them, I found it hard to concentrate on food. I brought only sadness on the table. Perhaps it was true that I was a cursed girl, bringing destruction to the world. How will Lady Stark be able to sit on the same table with me and feel content after losing her maiden House to the crown?

I looked up at Ser Edmure Tully, who was graciously interacting with Robb, his eyes sparkling while telling a tale of his adventure further down the North in one of his range. He would have been Lord Edmure if my King Father hadn’t got the crown on his head. For rebelling against the crown, House Tully had to give up their lands and titles. House Darry, the staunch loyalist to the crown became the Lord Paramount of Riverrun.

Ser Edmure had been sent to serve the Night’s Watch, not just four years back when he was a fifteen-year-old lad. So that there wouldn’t be any dispute in the future between the houses.

Lady Catelyn had never forgiven me. I suppose I didn’t deserve to be forgiven. All the rebel lords had to lose many of their lands and titles after the war had been over. It was how the world worked. The North was spared because the House Stark were older than eight thousand years, and it would mean continuous wars for generation to come, in order to upright peace on these lands.

A secret part of me wished King Rhaegar didn’t want to harm his beloved lover’s maiden home, as though that would make them look like destined lovers who would live beyond their years in history. But that was silly. People didn’t live for love. People lived craving for power. And I was powerless as like fickle of fire in dead cold snow.

Pressing my heels, bowing with a curtsey, I excused myself from the table. It was improper for a lady to run away in the middle of the supper and if the Septa had to see me doing such tasteless behavior, she would trouble me to days end. Not that I was going to be bothered by her.

Just as I exited the Great Hall, when I turned around, Lord Stark’s grey eyes were directed on me. I’d never seen him sick with guilt like this. Something in my chest pinched, and I struggled to be on my feet while running in the direction of the courtyard, where Jaime was sitting all alone on top of a rock, as though he was waiting for me to come and question him.

When Jaime’s gleaming emerald eyes blinked up at me, I almost wished I hadn’t seen Lord Stark’s guilt-ridden, haunted face.

“Listen!” Jaime held his hand up, trying to calm me. “You know me. You know how I like to pull other’s legs. The Royce boy was uptight in his ass, and I just loosened him a bit. It is nothing more.“

I nodded, ready to take his word, but the bugging instinct didn’t let this go. “Why were you sent to guard me?“

Ser Jaime Lannister blinked several times, that faint touch of pride and ego diminishing into pure ferocity. He didn’t answer, nor did he try to respond. “To protect you.” He said in his feeble tone.

“Why, you? Why did my father have to send you to protect me?” The question itself was ridiculous. Ser Jaime was in the Kingsguard and it was up to my King Father to decide what he should be doing, which was one of the reasons why Ser Jaime had no qualms to fight against Lord Stark in the Stark’s own Hall. Jaime had to answer King Rhaegar, not Lord Stark.

“It was part of the punishment.” Ser Jaime answered. “As your sweet uncle mentioned, I am not an honorable man, Lyarra. I killed the King that I swore to protect, and your father’s staunch guards found me before the others. In an ultimatum, he asked me to leave with you, to the North, and keep you safe here.“

Was he speaking about the Mad King? I had never seen Jaime sad. I had never seen him crying. I had never known he was capable of crying. Or that he was so distraught of killing a mad man. He’d appeared arrogant, selfish, and stupid, but never vulnerable. Dragging my fingers and keeping it pressed between his palms, he cried then, looking vulnerable than ever.

“I failed to keep my oath and so I was sent here as a punishment.” I didn’t know what to say or why he was confronting me. I guess he was alone and afraid here, feeling guilty of a crime. “The Mad King threatened to burn down the cities before your father came. It was too late and everyone would have died—”

I could even hear his hiccup. I held his head against my belly, and he kept drenching it with his salty tears. He had been a reckless teacher, but I was still proud of being one of his students. He taught me with passion, although it burned me at times. He’d taunted me to death, although I never wondered why he didn’t find himself fit with others. “You did the right thing, Jaime”

He shook his head, almost disbelieving my words, but I didn’t let go of him. There weren’t many people in the world that I trusted. Very rare. Rarest of rare.

“Does Lord Stark know why you have been sent here?” I questioned. If no one had known Jaime wouldn’t need to be filled with dread and sorrow.

Jaime chuckled, his old glory returning. “Of course, he knows. At least would have suspected. Only a fool would buy that Iron throne barbed your mad grandfather while I was the only man remained to protect him in the throne room.“

I could only nod, feeling even more nauseated. A mad grandfather burning my other grandfather was the last image I wanted to see in my vision. What Jaime left out telling was, my father had sent him to North, like sending a prisoner. It was well known that the House Lannister never participated in the war, waiting out to see the winners. Perhaps, Ser Jaime was sent here to North, so Lord Tywin would always be threatened of his son’s life and never raise arms against the crown. Which made Jaime’s life more pathetic than mine. To loose everything in a single action of righteousness. Dread feelings somersaulting in my stomach, I clenched his hands. “Will you tell me the truth?“

“That is a costly question, Princess.“

“I will pay the price,” I said and he winced. “What is Lord Stark hiding from me?”

“He thinks he is saving you. He thinks he is protecting you.”

“From whom?”

He didn’t have to answer, I already read his guilty eyes. I left my wandering thoughts to mull over my anger at Ned Stark for later, while I held Ser Jaime’s freezing hands to focus on him.

“Will you tell me about King’s Landing?” I asked, wondering what my dear uncle did in the name of protection.

“You are better here than being in that rotting city, Princess!” He commented but he didn’t fail to tell everything he remembered of my father, or Queen Elia Martell, or Princess Rhaenys Targaryen. I decided to make my journey to the rotting city. No matter what!


	3. Wings of Power

“Your sword and your hand are twins turned lovers. One can’t live without the other. And one cannot leave the other.” Jaime had once lamented when I dropped my wooden sword on snow after he’d beat my wrist black and purple.

I’d scowled every time he’d tried to impart his twisted knowledge, but now that I grew older, I found a grain of truth in every cuss word he spoke. Not that I got any better. Even after a decade of training from one of the best hands in Westeros, I still couldn’t unarm Jaime.

Even if I came to terms with Jaime’s reckless behavior, there was a sinister part of me that despised his guts. While I had to practice every day in front of the mirror reiterating words and ways to be pleasant and warm, fresh, and beautiful like a flower, even when I found resentment and rage thrown in my way, Jaime always had his way with the world.

He’d never cared what the world thought about him. He hadn’t bothered to call a fight, at any lords and lordling, with a snarky remark, jabbing with their partial loyalty to the crown, while I wouldn’t even dare to lift my head and meet their eyes.

 _Did I hate his guts? No…_ I was madly jealous of the fact that I couldn’t express and be free in my own skin like he’d been. And whenever he’d grin, I wanted to slap that out from his face. Somehow, my dumb head had comprehended the conclusion that ripping away his joy would give me satisfaction. If I didn’t deserve any joy, what rights did he have to rejoice in it? What rights did the world have to relish in it?

Together we matched, step for step, but I still couldn’t make the tip of my sword to grace his porcelain skin. All I managed was to keep my sword in my hand—a fine trick Jaime had taught me.

I grew tired since the day I’d figured out that Lord Stark was hiding a grave truth. I’d sneaked into the Maester’s turret, with Arya towed at my side, but only disappointment visited in our mission.

As much as I writhed in agony learning that Lord Stark was hiding things, I was equally desperate to hold on to that hope. To find something that would point out that King Rhaegar had been looking out for me.

_I needed to know I was being cared for._

_I craved to know there was a place I could call home._

_I wickedly wished that I would become the Princess that my King Father was waiting to pass the crown to._

After barely surviving here, I should be worshipping for a meager portion of love, but I was a bastard, and I didn’t shy of asking more than what was given.

Nothing went right, though. I couldn’t ask my uncle if he was deceiving me. It was a blunt question that would go unanswered or much worse ending up with ‘Ice’ slicing my neck.

Still, with all my blind courage one fine evening, when my uncle had finished up addressing the Northmen grievances in court, I’d asked, “Do you think the King would have got my missive? “

He’d patted my cheek with sincere love and had said, “I am sure the King received your missive, sweetling. He has Seven Kingdoms to rule. Perhaps he is too occupied to reply.” I’d been too shocked that he’d thought me a child who could be deceived by his silly ploys. I’d been even more angered at myself for getting fooled with those simple lies, all these freaking years. Just moments after he’d walked past me, he’d turned around and had said with a fake joy. “In a moon’s time, I will be visiting the Manderlys in White Harbour. You can accompany me this time with your harp. They have fine musicians in all of North and you can finally get your harp strings changed.“

I’d managed to not let my tears spill, wondering about all the time he’d bribed like this and had made me forget question him of the truth. At that moment though, all the memories I had of my life seemed to be a total foolish lie.

I ended up disliking my cowardly life, where I walked and talked meek as a mouse.

I didn’t know which I hated the most. The fact that Ned Stark was hiding things from me about my family or that he hadn’t shown any remorse for hiding it from me.

Irritated of being pushed over and over, I swung my blade, throwing all my strength into giving an upward cut to Jaime’s head, and he blocked it with a struggle. “Where did that come from?” Jaime was stunned and startled, but he began matching my blade with his blade, countering each step of mine.

His wicked smirk made my blood boil. It reminded me of all the times I was ridiculed and made fun of, and left alone to lick my wounds.

_I made him twirl. I made him spin. I made him laugh. I made him grunt. I made him curse when I slapped his knuckles with the flat of my blade._

And he lost his sword!

“First among many?” Jaime chuckled. I should be proud of his first approval. That was how Robb felt when Ser Rodrik would praise. But I couldn’t. I remembered all the times Jaime had taken me for granted, and I gathered my bunched up fist and knocked his jaw, and his face slanted down.

Jaime gave a feral growl that I thought he would choke on my neck when he looked up at me. After spending more than fourteen fucking years with him, I was definite he was aiming to curl his fist around my pale throat. But he smiled, sucking in his blood-red lips.

“I guess I had it coming!” He answered with a proud smile of seeing me beating him down. “But that would be the last time you will touch my face, Princess!” His smile disappeared into a sinister growl before he picked up his sword. “And stop being an adamant brat! It won’t help you.“

“You know what he did, but you will hide it from me?” I yelled, my chest still heaving from the fight.

“Ignorance is bliss. It is better that you know fancy lies than the ugly truths.” He twitched his jaw, leaving me to suffer inside.

I rotted for days, struggling back and forth to seek and snatch some ray of truth, but life didn’t work that way. Offers and prizes would knock on my door in the tattered rag. I might be a Princess, but I was a bastard. I was a dragon with broken wings. I suffered silently, applying salves and pastes to my bruises that Jaime would award me in the courtyard for growing violent day by day.

I should have known better. Even if I consoled myself to be Jaime’s odd friend of some sort, _a lion was a lion_. And it wasn’t in any human’s nature to tame it. As long as he considered me in his pride, I was safe. If not, he would rip out my heart with his claws to show who was the leader of the pride.

It was one of those sour mornings when scented lilies, with a strange scent of cardamom and anise, awoke me to a delightful morning. Delightful it was… and I wanted to cuddle up to my knees in my fetal position until I heard her clear her throat.

The moment I heard, I jumped up, throwing away my quilts, and adjusted my blood-red eyes to face her, in my elaborate stone chamber with gray walls, where she placed herself more comfortable than I had ever been in my whole life. Like she owned this place. Like she belonged and looked down on me, as though I was a mismatch.

With only a thin white cloth barely covering my modesty and slept through frizzy brown mess of hair and droopy eyes, I clenched my bare toes together, unable to look up and face her perfect red hair, that hadn’t got a single thread out of its place.

“I hope a tea would rub away that morning mess out from your face!” She informed casually and poured tea lifting it in the air with perfection. “Would you prefer ginger over cardamom?“

I shook my head, shocked that Lady Stark had arrived at my chamber, where a few of the newly stitched clothes still laid carelessly on the cushion chairs after trying it out at Mya’s insistence that last night, and I looked more pauper than a Princess. I stilled, realizing that shouldn’t be the first concern for me. I should be worried about why she planned on visiting me.

The last time she’d visited, a hailstorm had precipitated all across the North with the rage she’d shouted and warned me never to get involved with Robb with the plans to seduce him. I hadn’t given thoughts to seduce my cousin—not even in my wildest dreams. We’d swim together, naked as kids, in Godswoods’s hot pool. It was ridiculous to see him as a man, but that day, I’d learned our childish rivalries in pushing each other into the water, or pouring wine on each other’s head, or sneaking up to each other’s bed chamber to scream and scare should have to end.

I couldn’t gather for the life of me, what crime I’d committed for her to arrive at this early morning to my own chambers.

If her deranged anger had scared me before, the calm demeanor that she was showing me shook my nerves to death.

“Go on!” She pushed a cup, and I sat across her, trying to come up with all the plans she might be plotting to end my life. What if she’d added poison to the tea? Could I refuse to drink until she sipped her cup first? As though catching my thoughts, she smiled shaking her head and lifting her cup to her lips. “Is this assuring?“

I nodded and took mine, but felt childish for letting out my vulnerabilities easily for her to read.

“If killing you would solve all my problems, trust me, I would have smothered you when you were nothing but a wailing child.” She whispered with a smile.

Assured that I wasn’t going to be killed today, I gave a long sigh. There was no point in reading her head. “What do you want from me?“

“Do you truly think you have anything to give me?“

I winced. Her words went straight to my chest. I didn’t really possess anything. “I suppose, then you assume, I have something that you can take from me.“

“That I do.” She sighed, folding her hands over her lap. “But it isn’t any assumption. Consider this as a trade. A secret for a secret. A lie for a lie. A promise for—“

“What possible thing is there for me to give you?” I snickered, suddenly feeling so low. I might be angry, not using my head, sometimes, but I knew how the world worked.

“That is the second part of the trade, _Princess Visenya_. Do you not want to know what I will offer you?”

I liked this game, a little better. Rather than being chewed and spit out, I like being important and powerful enough to be approached for a trade of secrets and promises and lies. Although, I wanted to deny her all pleasures at that moment. “Why would you think I will believe anything you want to offer? Were you not the same aunt who threatened to poison me if I lured your son into my bed and let him put his child in my womb?“

The prudish woman Lady Catelyn was, she hadn’t uttered the same words, but the intent was the same. And Lady Stark disapproved of my foul language with a click on her tongue, shaking her head. “The result of bastardy!” She shunned me, but I was above all those ill comments to let myself be bothered. “I wonder how your Royal family will welcome you as their own if you speak like a fisherwoman.“

I tried to show her that I was unbothered, but when I began seeing myself with the family I dreamed of belonging, I felt my cheeks redden with an embarrassment of letting them down, even if it was just an imagination. All the more I disliked this woman’s hold over my own misgivings and using it against to make me react all the ways she wanted. “I don’t care if they are disappointed in me. Do you want to know the truth?” I smirked, feeling so much power that she couldn’t predict what I was about to say and eagerly waiting in anticipation. “I don’t care what you have to offer. If I could deny anyone anything in this life, then you will be the first among many.“

There! When I uttered those words out, my ego surged like a mountain, and I leisurely leaned back in the chair and enjoyed her offer of a freaking tea.

“I am humbled, Princess!” She chuckled with sarcasm. “I guess I am wrong for the first time.” Oh, how I loved to hear her tell the things I had only dreamed. She gathered her woolen skirt and moved towards the door, but paused for a moment before pulling it open. “Here I was, assuming that you were desperate to know certain information about your family.“

Fate had its way to play a game in my life, or Lady Catelyn knew exactly how to play her game. It didn’t even occur to me in the slightest possible way to wonder how she would be privy to Lord Stark’s secret life or how much she would be knowing how vulnerable I was in front of her. Or how she would always keep an eye out on me to gather all my movements in this castle.

For a moment I wanted to believe it all a lie, bury down my eagerness, and think she was messing up my head and move on with the current life I owned. That way I could finally win her in her game. I could laugh at her back for losing to me and make this moment a remarkable milestone in sending her away. What then? I would never learn what I had missed. What I had deserved to know. I would never know if I was loved with true sincerity.

“What do you want in exchange?” I replied.

Her auburn long tresses moved in the air when she turned around, and I found her wicked victory smile annoying to an extent that it burned my skin.

* * *

There were nights that I had gone wondering and dreaming about a different life. Surrounded by a family that loved. A dinner where I was welcomed as a daughter, and a sister, and a Princess. A court where courtiers smiled, and jousts and tournaments when strong, valiant, chivalrous knights fought for my favor.

In names and titles, I had it all, yet I was nothing but an unwelcomed mouse in North. Over and over again, irrespective of my willingness to earn their goodwill, I was not accepted here. And every time I sobbed, trailing rivers of tears in my bed, I had the questions of what-if?

I had never wanted to simply wonder, so I let my pain and sufferings known to King Rhaegar through letters and missives each year. I had poured down everything that I liked, disliked, enjoyed, suffered, so he would know me for the person I grew up.

I’d written a letter about a pony that I first rode, with words of joys and rejoice. I’d also written about the same pony when it died of sickness, words filled with the agony of my pain. I’d shared my first experience in swimming in a frozen lake, and I’d shared my first visit to the Bear Islands with Robb. Every silly thing that I’d thought would explain what I grew up to be, I’d filled it in several pages of parchment and had asked Lord Stark to send it to my father.

Except for the first two years of letters, all the rest still rested safely in Lord Stark’s secret cupboard.

I didn’t know how to handle this truth. I knew Lord Stark had done something wrong by not letting me know about my family, so I should be able to handle this heavy confrontation. I had prepared myself for this betrayal. But my hands shivered and several drops of tears kept spilling to drench those parchments, as though I had lost something.

_But how could you lose something that you never had?_

All those memories rushed back like flood breaching the barriers—when my uncle would visit my chamber and take me out, right after I would ask him to send out a letter. He’d bribed my childhood, and I’d let myself stew in his malevolence.

“These are a few things that we received from the capital.” Lady Catelyn dumped small wooden boxes onto the table. “It would come through the ship. Sometimes to the House Manderly, and sometimes—“

I crumpled all those parchments and fell on my knees, blocking out her ramblings, blocking out everything that I could feel through my blood and bones. I needed to break things, and if I stayed here in this chamber, I might as well kill that trout woman, who was going on and on about how I should be careful to not let her husband know of her involvement in this discovery.

I bit my lips hard till I tasted blood, and pulled my knees close to my chest, trying to ease out this suffocation. I couldn’t. I needed someone or something, and I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to hold on to something strong, but I was afraid there was truly someone worth holding onto. I’d put my trust in him. Was it too much to ask? How could he break my love and trust?

“Listen!” Lady Stark shook my shoulders, kneeling in front of me, her eyes dark and wide. “I will leave all this to you. And when Ned comes—” She paused, warily looking at my destroyed form.

“You wanted to see me like this. Didn’t you?” I asked, my throat hiccupping every word out. “You wanted to see me broken down this way.“

She didn’t cower or hide from my question and I had to give her some credit for never lying what she was. At least she was true to me, even if she disliked me.

“I lost my father. My brother had to swear celibacy for life and take the black. My sister became a widow before she began her life. And I lost my home in which I grew up as a girl. Spare me some courtesies for being kind enough to let you live.” Lady Stark straightened up and stood, dusting the creases in her dress. “When you speak with Ned, I want you to remember the promise you gave me.“

Once she left, I took all my time to unwrap the boxes, forgetting about the game she was playing. I didn’t care for her games. Perhaps I should, but when I opened those boxes and saw my life unfold into pieces of lies and treachery, I forgot my own name.

* * *

I twirled the soft ribbon around my fingers and wondered what in the Seven Hells did my father think while sending a sleek, enormous, peculiar ribbon where its frills fell seven inches long. It was special, that much I knew, for it had tiny white pearls encrusted in between the knots, and it must be something peculiar in the South for him to send it to me.

There were other things, more and more peculiar things inside the boxes that had come right after my sixth name day. The same year when I’d sent my first letter and Lord Stark managed to send it to King’s Landing.

I wanted to cry seeing the things spread out on the table. It was as though my father grew along with me, choosing things a girl would love to possess. A thin sleeveless gown, small enough for a child of seven years old, that would melt if someone touched. I forgave my father for not remembering that North was cold as dead and I would’ve frozen to death wearing that gown.

There were a few dolls too, all in pair, fair porcelain, and coffee brown, dressed elaborately in sewn dresses that even the North didn’t have the luxury to wear of such silk. There were slim, thin, silver strings for harp, buried in one of the boxes. I wondered if my father thought I would become a good singer like him. Instantly, I wanted to show my talent to him. Of what I learned all these years. Everything beautiful was there on the boxes, but just short of two years back, there weren’t any more gifts. It was possible that he got tired of waiting for my reply. Or he believed I didn’t want his gifts and stopped sending me anymore.

I wanted to erase that feeling somehow. I wanted to run and hug him, pouring my sincere thanks for thinking about me and looking after me, and begging him to take me back.

When I heard a man’s breath, soft and harsh, coming out from the threshold of the chamber, I tentatively picked the silver brooch made of three dragon heads, and each dragon’s eyes blinking bright with rubies.

“Lyarra!” My uncle called, but paused before coming closer.

I turned around, clasping the brooch that my father had sent near my heart, patting it twice before looking into his eyes to find humility and embarrassment. Instead, I found him seethe in anger.

“You went through the things that you had no rights touching. Now, remove that thing and hand it over to me.“

Was he japing? Or was I dreaming? I clenched my fist tight till my nails dug painfully into my skin, so I could control some sanity. _He brought you up;_ I said to myself. _He had put food on your table;_ I said again and gave a long breath before looking up to his eyes.

“How could you do this to me, uncle?” I asked, and bit my lower lips to make it stop quivering. “All these years, he reached out for me and you hid everything. All these years, you stopped my letters to him!“

He didn’t answer, rather; he closed the door behind, sending away the guards. “You weren’t supposed to see it. Damn it, Lya! Who allowed you inside? How did you even get to know these things? Jaime Lannister! I knew he would tell something to you.“

He paced, still angry at my discovery, not even beginning to realize how hurt I was with this betrayal. And I began gathering the things on the table, as though that was the treasure I possessed. One by one, I piled it into a basket, and when I found a long earring that extending two inches down like a teardrop, but made of soft stone that I couldn’t point what it was made of, I began searching for its pair—because that damn exotic thing lacked its pair.

“I should have burned this long ago. I should have buried it when it came. I was a fool. Always a fool!” He screamed, walking long down the chamber.

“Perhaps you wanted me to find these one day,” I said, still collecting whatever remained on the long table. “Perhaps you thought you could let me have it after you died, so you will be absolved of your crimes and don’t live to face the repercussions of it.”

“I did no crime.”

For the first time, I saw the kind Lord under whom I grew up, yell out a scream, and spell out the word with anger and fear. _He feared._ And Gods, I wished his fear wouldn’t affect me. Because you only fear when you knew you did a mistake. He had taught me that. And he’d taught me well.

“I was trying to protect you. You of all people should know that I would never do it to harm you.”

“But then why does it hurt me, uncle?” I asked, touching that brooch to my chest, under where the heart resided. “Why does it hurt me as I would rather be shredded to several pieces?” I couldn’t stop myself to cry, because that was all I owned.

“Oh, Lya! Sweetling, you don’t understand his tricks. He fooled us all. He fooled your mother. She was just like you. Trusting and lovely. He used her for his benefits with all his lies and false promises. These…” He pointed to the things I stuffed inside the basket. “These are just things with no value. This doesn’t mean a thing for him.“

“But these mean everything to me. I wanted to think he was a monster who never cared for me. And I slept all the nights thinking he was one. Now to see he reached out for me, and you stopped all my letters. It seems you are the true monster.” He winced, his throat bobbing up and down, hearing my accusations. I didn’t want to do it this way. I never wanted to hurt him, but how will he ever learn my pain, without me showing him how hurt I was. “I was so scared here. I thought someone will surely kill me. I was alone and desperate. And you stopped my father to reach out to me. You made him never to be a part of my life.” I couldn’t see his eyes and tell my secrets. It was agony to live through the trepidation and anxiety once again. I cleared my throat. “Be that as it may, I want your leave. I want to visit my father.“

All the sadness in my uncle’s face drained, and his teeth ground like rocks before he set on a cold demeanor that might have once made me run and hide beneath the bed. “No.” He bellowed, his fists went rigid and tight.

But I was from his blood and I wasn’t going to cower anymore. So, I shrilled back. _“No?“_

“No. You will not take a step out of this castle, young lady. Make no mistake, I love you. I love you so much that I will do anything in my power to keep you rather locked in a dungeon than to send you out there to be butchered.“

His arrogance, his power, his authority sent a jolt of anger to spine and I stood straight, grinding my teeth the same as he did. “You cannot make me stay here. I will never stay here.“

“Oh, I will! You will not disappoint this family as your mother did. It brought no good to this house. You will listen to my words, and you will do the duty that your mother failed to do.“

“You are not my father, nor the King to make me stay here. And I will do anything to run away from you.“

“But you are under my supervision. And you will behave as befits for a ward. You will stay where I ask you to stay and eat what I will put on your table. And when you grow up, you will wed my son, and learn your duties.“

My nose twitched, breath coming out unevenly in anger that I forgot how to breathe, how to speak, how to be in control, how to be kind and comforting. I walked a few steps close to him, meeting him eye to eyes, and spilled the words that first escaped my tongue. _“Make me!”_

He was cold as ice for a moment, waiting for me to back out of the fight, but I wouldn’t cower, not when he was demanding me to be a broodmare. It lasted only a minute before he sighed, appalled by my own coldness or by his own outburst that he sighed and resigned, shaking his head.

He left from the chamber immediately, and I stayed all night, stewing in my own poison, forgetting so many questions that popped into my head. I wrote an elaborate letter to my father, ready to ask Jaime for help—an assistance that I knew he would do, and if Jaime wouldn’t, I was ready to threaten him with the secret that he’d shared with me. A day back, I wouldn’t have even thought of using Jaime’s vulnerabilities to get things done for my benefit, but now, at this moment, I was ready to burn down this castle to get what I wanted—what I deserved.

I wondered how different was I from the woman that I hated—or perhaps I was more like her than I thought I was.

I kept scribbling several times, but none of my explanations and answers felt right. The sob story, the sad story, the betrayal, the love, the pain—it all felt too much to be poured on a piece of parchment to a man, who might be still thinking a thin laced gown was fit to be worn in cold North. I couldn’t let out my vulnerabilities in a damned parchment, and I burned them all, before writing a single line, like a proud, headstrong dragon that he had presented, demanding him to wait for my arrival.

I didn’t know anything about my father. He hadn’t sent a missive in all those trinkets he had presented. I knew nothing about him. But I wanted to. I so wanted to know about my half-siblings, the Queen, and most of all—my father. And I was ready to sacrifice anything to reach that point.

It was in the morning when I was once again woken up with the aroma of burned bacon and cooked egg. And I gathered myself, almost forgetting where I chose to reside that day. Unlike the previous day, as Lady Stark had come, it was Lord Stark who took residence on an old wooden chair, head bent down to stare at his toes, elbows on his knees, and fingers weaved loose.

The moment I saw him, I decided to bolt out from the chamber, but he chuckled, shaking his head. His smile was painfully sad than any merriment I’d known.

“All these days I wanted you to never learn anything that belonged to your father. And I tried so hard. Teaching you every single lesson that I learned from my father. But I forgot it isn’t any good to be an adamant Stark woman.” He smiled to himself. He seemed weary than I had seen him yesterday. His eyes were red as blood, indicating he hadn’t slept an hour. “You are more like your mother and it isn’t any compliment. Now have your breakfast. It is the last remaining from the kitchen.“

I stared out the window to notice how long the day had gone by and I’d missed the most of it. But I refused to obey him, ready to defy him to prove I could not be tamed by him.

“I will not be a hindrance to let you go if your father is ready to welcome you.“

I gleamed, a weight shredding down from my chest, but I wasn’t ready to share it with him. I couldn’t forgive him for acting a God to remove that precious part of my memory. I wasn’t ready to accept him for making me a fool every time. And so, I remained silent, waiting for him to leave.

“I will send Jory and fifty guards from Winterfell. The men who don’t have a family. It is your responsibility to provide for them. And if they want to leave—“

“You have taught me well, Lord Stark.” I had to cut him, before hearing another word that would make me fall into another invisible layer of protection that he held for me.

“Do you need anything else?” He asked and shook my head, ready to run away. I couldn’t cry for finally leaving, and especially not in front of him. He would be more than glad to hug me and tell I was better to be an unlucky Stark who was hated all throughout my life.

Just when he was about to retire, I remembered the promise Lady Catelyn had asked of me. “Is it fine… if… I don’t want to be alone, there! I need…” I failed pathetically. “I want to take Sansa with me. She is the sister I grew up with and we will look after each other. Please…” I felt more like a child, ready to cry for a candy.

His eyes shrunk, and I was almost certain he would refuse. Even if Lady Stark didn’t ask that of me, it truly was a nice feeling to have someone who could understand me, close by my side. I bit my lips, hoping and praying for him to accept.

He dragged out a long breath, calculating all his mistakes by accepting me to take leave from his safety net. What made him agree I wasn’t so sure, but he nodded and patted twice on my head before leaving to do his duties.

Yet, I worried more than the day before, wondering if it was a mistake to plan to leave from the place I grew up. Much more worried if I was making a mistake by seeking a family that most likely had forgotten me.

_Who said having the power and freedom to decide was easy? It wasn’t._


	4. To The Capital

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, Lya!” Arya screamed, throwing punches with her fisted hand. She hadn’t spoken with me in a fortnight, shutting herself inside her chamber, and sending Nymeria to threaten everyone who’d tried to console her. Now that we were leaving, she’d come out—but it didn’t make things better. “You were supposed to choose me. Not Sansa. How could you betray me?” She sniffed like a child and shoved me down to a pile of snow.

I should be annoyed by her persistence, but the mistake was mine. She had been expecting an apology from me and a little attention. I denied giving her that peace. I denied facing anyone who could change my mind in the last fortnight. I denied Arya. I denied Robb. I denied Jaime. And most of all, I denied Lord Stark. I’d shut them out of mind, focusing on the necessary. It wouldn’t do any good to retrospect on my decision. I couldn’t afford such silliness.

“I didn’t betray you. Sansa is older, and she isn’t coming to watch melees and tourneys. She will soon send a missive about her newfound love in just a month. Trust me!” I smiled, hoping that might convince the little rat with whom I’d always been close.

“But _I want_ to watch the melees and participate in the tourneys.” Arya wailed, her bitten lips trembling. “And… I will _miss_ you.” Tears fell effortlessly down her cheek. _“It will be empty here.”_ She pointed her finger to her heart and my jaw slacked down. “I don’t want to be here without you.” She fell on me, hugging my torso tight. “All I need is a basket to get stuffed in. Please, Lya! Please, take me with you.”

I laid there in the Godswood, not even uttering a word, my eyes staring aimlessly at the red heart leaves that fluttered in the wind. I felt Arya’s pain. It wasn’t because she was missing out on the adventurous journey. It was for me. She would miss me. She would miss all the tiny missions in pranking the household, in bearing with the scowling Septa’s lessons, in being different together— _mostly_ , in not being perfect. Moreover, I understood how it was to feel being left alone.

“I am sorry,” I whispered, my finger circling her back.

“I still hate you.” Arya whimpered.

“I know.”

“You are cruel. The cruelest than that stupid Jeyne.” She spat out her words that plunged right into my heart. “You never came for supper. You never attended the Septa’s stitching lessons. You never even existed here beyond speaking with Jory and Sansa. And… you never even told me you were leaving.” Arya held the collar of my new woolen dress, clutching it tightly with venomous anger spilling from her tone. “I learned it from Jeyne. I learned it when they called me horse-face and told me I wasn’t welcomed in their journey. I didn’t believe it. Robb didn’t believe it. Even Bran told me they were lying to tease me. No one believed because you never said a word to us. Do we mean nothing to you?”

“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone of you.” I sat on the sinking snow, protesting to her like I was the child and she was the adult there.

“Oh, you didn’t mean it!” Arya rose, looking down her boots. “But you hurt us, anyway.”

It was her silence that spoke louder than her words. I stumbled, trying to form cohesive words that were lost before it reached my tongue. How do you console a person in pain? Could pain ever be erased? It was one thing I learned — _the harshest lesson_. We could not send the writhing pain away or make it disappear. We just find a way to live with that pain, bearing the scars in every wake of our life. And me, the Lyarra that my little cousin grew up with, would always want to remain a snowflake in her life.

It took time to console Arya, but it wasn’t difficult as I suspected. She forgave me for my crimes and took promises of sending a missive every week and returning to Winterfell in two years’ time. I gave away the promises, like giving away snow candies that I and Robb had made as children. I’d no plans for this journey. I’d no idea when I could return or if I could return—more precisely if I would be welcomed when I return—after all, I was never welcomed here, to begin with. There was no point in returning, and that would be utterly weak of me to do so.

Hazed in my worries, I helped Jory assemble the reluctant party of fifty Northern guards, who’d more scowls on their jowls than any resemblance of regard for me. If it was up to me, I would strand everyone here—including Jaime, and take my horse and Ghost, with a bow and arrow, a gilded sword in the hip, and enjoy the adventure to meet my father. As the count of the party increased, my shoulders kept sunken in with the weight of responsibilities for all the fifty men—who probably would want to slit my throat, my sweet cousin Sansa, the two troublesome maids.

I was restless every time the guards questioned me. I was angry at not being able to make them just follow me, rather than question my own existence.

“And why does your father want to see you now?” A burly guard of fifty spat to the ground, sharpening his fine steel of a hunting knife when I passed by him. He had spotted skin and a bald head, with wisps of long gray hair flying out from his ears like banners carrying sigils. He screamed of _danger_ with his cold gaze, and colder steel in hand. “Is the Lord exchanging prisoners? ‘Coz, my cousin was lost in the river. I heard your father keeps him in the dungeon.”

 _I am not a prisoner;_ I wanted to scream. But the blunt little finger, which was sharpened once by a man like him, made me cower a bit. The northern men had a unanimous trait. _Being stupidly brave, just like my sweet old uncle._ And this man would see me dead rather than think what would happen after he’d killed me.

Yet, the proud dragon in me surged with brewing anger of being insulted. “My father is your King. You have to give him the reverence—”

He spat to the ground once again, at the mention of _reverence_ , and my body went rigid. “Your father better have my cousin alive.” He warned, returning to sharpen his blade.

I moved to the stables to bring my horse out, silently contemplating the way to run away, leaving everything behind. I couldn’t wait to reach King’s Landing. My King Father had written back to me, “The Princess can come _home_ when she feels ready.”

It was a singular line, but it’d made me yearn for home—a home where I wasn’t considered a prisoner, or a cursed Princess, rather a family of their blood and bones.

_“We run in the pack! We howl for the pack—”_

Robb’s rumbling voice disturbed the sand-castle that I began building in my dreams, and I was jolted into the old memories of our childish reveries when I turned around to find his messy auburn curls wildly flying across his eyes.

I picked up the rest of the song. “We fight together as a pack! We are the strength of our pack! And as long as we stay together—”

“We survive as a pack!” He ended.

It was the silliest song we’d made before raising wooden swords to fight against each other because we’d never agreed on being in the same pack. While I would drag little Arya in my pack, he would take little Bran in his, all the while pretending to be the hunting wolves in the wild, attacking the territories of each other. Because we both had the same goal. We both had wanted to be the head of the pack.

I smiled, thinking back at our own farce as children. Robb smiled too, but with a lace of sadness to it. This… was the exact reason why I’d avoided giving goodbyes. It was devastating. It was beautifully tragic. For most of my childhood, I’d roamed wearing Robb’s clothes, chopping off my hair to look like him, trying to sneak into his chamber so I could sleep next to him, imitating his fancy words, fighting and rolling in snow and mud, playing dangerous games challenging each other, making ice castles by the frozen lake when Lord Stark would take us for teaching hunting. Even after we’d grown up, for the longest time I remember, Robb’d still sneaked into my chamber, before he’d finally understood that my honor as a maid would be questioned if anyone would notice him.

“It is a long journey.” He filled in the silence, his voice croaking with a mist of longing in it, while his fingers traced my horse’s mane.

“Longer than the Wall.” I cheered him, remembering the time when we’d thought the Wall was the end of the world.

“Longest, Lya! Longer than White Harbour, the Bear Island, and anyplace we have known.” He agreed.

“I will be the one to win then. I am the first to go the longest.” I raised my brow, controlling the urge to not let the tears spill. If I’d cry, then he’d find it easier to convince me to stay. And I didn’t want to be convinced.

“I wish I can go back in time and never challenge you.” His tone was no more soft, no more kind, no more polite, no more proper like the boy I’d known before. It was aggressive, like how Ned Stark had been when he’d found me in his secret hoard holding out the truth. “Is this what motivates you to go all up to that rat hole? Our silly childhood challenge? They are our enemies, Lya. All our enemies are there in the capital. Tell me you are no mere fool—”

“Don’t act like the pretentious butt, that you always are!” I snapped back, my voice just resonating with his own.

“Great! Now blame me for every whimsical decision of yours.”

I clenched my fingers and my teeth together, counting on my self-will to not knock him down, and break his teeth as a parting gift.

“Have you ever cared for anyone here?” He chuckled, his mockery evident with the way he evaluated me. “Do you know the last time Father had spoken properly at the table? Do you even know how the children feel about your decision? Do you regret—”

“Well, I regret it!” I screamed, slamming my fist into his chest. He stumbled back. “I regret so much, Robb. I have a life filled only with regrets. Did your beloved father ever tell what he’d done? Did he?” Robb was obviously confused, clearly not knowing what’d happened to me. And even in my insanity, I wasn’t going to tell how I felt betrayed, used, and even abused, living here. Because as rough and harsh life had been for me, I had got equally good memories to live with. Even if they had tried poisoning me, threatening me, trying to cripple me, I’d come to love them—love these coldhearted people. “Every time you call them as our enemies, had you ever thought even once that they are my family?”

Robb stilled, his stance rigid like mine had been. “But — They aren’t — Lya! You can’t think that way. We are your family.”

“Yeah?” I chuckled dryly, untying the reins of the horse. “How many times have you wondered about why I wasn’t attending the feast with you, Robb?” I wanted to spell out more. The miseries of growing up as the enemy’s unwanted bastard child, the pain of being an outcast. But I didn’t want Robb to carry the guilt of the entire North on his shoulder. It wasn’t his mistake that I’d been unlucky and born to parents out of sin and brought death to their door. “I was never a part of this pack! I always knew that. I am all by myself.”

His soft blue eyes moistened at the old memory, and he pulled me into his embrace. “You are the stupidest in our pack, Lya. The stupidest fool!”

I tried to retaliate, but I liked the sound of his warm heart against my cheek. Even if we fight, even if we despise, all it took was just a second for us to come around. For a moment, when I snuggled into his chest, I doubted my decision once again. This could go wrong, in all possible ways. I could be killed, smuggled, raped, beaten, imprisoned, or worse, let to live as a laughingstock in the capital. Here, with Robb next to me, I could be safe. For a moment, just a flicking, freaking, selfish moment, I let myself wonder about what Lord Stark had offered when we were in a rift.

_“You will wed my son and learn your duties!”_

Would Robb be too disgusted by the idea to wed me? Probably not! He was a northerner. And I was his cousin. To admit, at times, I’d seen myself in Lady Stark’s place of power. To control the entire North, to make the people who’d hate me with all their blood to bow before me, and my son after me. I needn’t carry all the burdens if I had power—if I had wealth—if I had a husband who’d be loyal to me and treat me with reverence. And Robb was everything and more. But that was just the foolish me, daydreaming about raising above my standard.

Lady Stark would poison me before I hold her son’s hand. Some random guards would slaughter me in sleep. Besides, I could easily buy power, but I could never buy love and respect. And after me, my child would still carry my sins—to carry my burden on his shoulder, like I was carrying my parents’.

“Don’t get killed there!” Robb whispered. “Then there will be nothing that stops me to end your _other_ family!”

I chuckled. “I will try.”

We walked out to the gates, where freedom and hope for the future were waiting for me. For best or worse, this was the choice I’d want to make for myself. To meet my father and get to know him. To meet my siblings and learn about them. After that, if they’d consider me worthy of a knight, I could pledge my sword to my brother—to be like Aemon the Dragonknight to Aegon. _If not—_

I paused, taking a long breath and turning around to see my uncle, in a few feet distance, his partially overgrown grey-bearded face, and his gray eyes telling a thousand apologies that no words could ever convey. I wanted to drop this ego that hung on my shoulder. I wanted to hug him once. And tell him that I’d forgiven him. A part of me knew he was feeling terrible about what’d happened, but I wanted him to remain in pain, as I’d always lived. I wanted him to experience the hollowness of how it felt to be rejected of an apology—to not be forgiven.

I climbed on my horse, trotting it close to Ser Jaime, with Ghost padding next to my horse.

* * *

The glow that decorated my pale face when we had started off from the North slowly began to drain when we crossed the Neck. Some strange humming noises echoed in my ears to run back to the safety of the familiarity. And for every night we camped, I woke up drenched in sweats and nightmares.

My nightmares had a pattern. One night Lady Stark came behind a shadow and smiled wide with blood dripping down her canine long teeth. I tried to shrug off that dream, but when she opened her palms, which held my heart that was still beating, I’d screamed and woke up to find the place of my chest still covered with thick skin.

Other nights were even scarier. And in all the dreams I was being murdered, in horrible, horrific ways. What seemed to be a quest to unite with the family that I lost, soon was turning out to be my own mission to fast death. If this wasn’t giving any comfort, Mya’s constant whining about how she hated the sunrays, and Sansa’s persistent complaints about how Jeyne and herself weren’t faring well in the wheelhouse all alone, and how she missed Lady—obviously, Lady Catelyn felt a proper lady wouldn’t roam with feral creatures—was enough to give me troublesome migraines.

I was bringing three girls who knew nothing of the world, to some viper’s nest, that my uncle warned not to set foot. Mostly, I worried about Sansa.

I might be impulsive in nature to think with my heart more than my brain, but I knew Lady Stark wasn’t sending Sansa to be my companion. It was most likely that the Tully woman was seeking a southern alliance. The worst of all this was, Sansa was already dreaming about finding her perfect knight—a task of truth that I would need to break down to her one day.

It was almost a fortnight when we reached the Darry’s land, and even when I wanted to move forward without a break, the Lord of the land had sent his men _to welcome us to his abode—_ if you could call a hundred armed soldiers with swords and bow and arrow in their hips as a welcome party. So far, in the North, no one had interfered with our journey—and that was to my aid because most of them would rather feast on me than feast me.

Now, though, after crossing the Trident where the major victory battle between my father and rebellers had occurred, a strange mix of fear stirred in the pit of my belly. I had to be cautious of the path I trod. My survival didn’t just depend on me, but on the girls who’d come with me.

For every decision, small or big I made, I approached Jaime, who was obviously cursing me for growing up and doing daring decisions that he didn’t agree with. Of course, Jaime agreed with me to grace the Darry’s castle, but I doubted his genuine intention. It was most likely that he wanted a strong heroic fight and was hoping to get one from the rivermen.

The girls were elated, especially Sansa—although she had completely forgotten that the Darrys replaced the Tullys as the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, and were now filthy rich. The Lord Darry didn’t forget though and his appreciation to Sansa’s presence was sour and scowling, whereas to me—he was polite, even if I dared to say, I could call it partly _welcoming_.

Once the feast was over, we were escorted to our chambers.

I was given an extravagant chamber in his newly extending castle, with five maids to tend to my needs. The walls were decorated with Myrish portraits of fire-breathing dragons chasing each other playfully above the clouds, and the floor was swept with rich, red, fringe filled carpet. The bed was huge for five to rest and made of sandalwood that I could even smell the sweet scent by simply rubbing my fingers. There were golden cups with the ruby-encrusted jewel, filled just below the brim with wine, fruits, and hot delicious food available on another ornate table. When I opened the door that connected to what seemed to be a parlor for high-born women to pamper themselves, I almost lost my ability to speak.

It was too much. All these were too much. The woolen clothes that I wore made of lambskin and the leather boots that went up to my knees made me look like a pauper than a Princess. And I couldn’t see myself belonging to this propriety. This chamber was custom made for the Royal guests. But I felt lost.

“This… This…” Sansa was standing at the entrance gaping just like me. “This is the chamber they allocated for you?” Her voice rattled.

“Yeah!” I answered, still struggling to accept this grand gesture. Had the Lord Darry forgotten I was a bastard? “It’s huge. Very huge. I guess it would fit five guests in!”

“Five?” Mya wailed. “I say fifty.” She leaped on the seven layers of cushion on the bed, rolling from one end to another, giggling like a child. “Oh Seven, save me! The only good thing that happened is you getting this chamber, Lya!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t try to understand anything when you can just enjoy it!” Mya plopped fruits into her mouth, before rushing inside the parlor, and almost screaming at its monstrosity.

Sansa didn’t move from the place she’d stood. And her eyes welled. I didn’t understand her reaction. Soon, her curling lips got soured, and she burst out from the chamber.

 _What happened?_ Did Sansa finally realize what it was meant to lose in a war? Probably, she was feeling sick to see how her family’s wealth had got exchanged. The Darrys were still expanding the castle.

“Uh uh!” Mya eyes followed Sansa’s trail too. “Poor girl! The chamber they gave her was—well, it wasn’t appropriate. It was small, like—like a maid’s chamber.”

_“What?!”_

* * *

By the time I thought of confronting the Lord, Ser Jaime knocked on my door, still in his golden armor and golden plate, as though he was ready for a battle.

“Lord Darry has sent two guards to escort you.” His cutting green eyes were unapologetic, more enthusiastic to fight them both, just for the thrill of a kill.

“I had been meaning to meet him myself”

I ignored Jaime’s pleas and walked with the guards towards the Great Hall, where the Lord had hosted a feast not just two hours back. The hall was messed up with ale and wine spilled all over, and there were no maids or servants cleaning the mess.

I had been furious over his treatment of Sansa, that I almost forgot that the Lord had commanded me to arrive at his disposal. Not until I found two rugged Northmen—Pate and Walys—tall as giants, standing with blood oozing out from their faces and body, did I realize I was in… _trouble_. Jory barged into the Great Hall with ten more Northern men at his side, but they weren’t injured or beaten up.

“My lady!” The Lord Darry still sat on his tall chair but appeared to exhibit respect. “Please take a seat next to us.”

My hands were shivering, and I had to flex them tight, before directing my gaze towards the two burly scowling faces. I’d expected this to happen, but only after reaching King’s Landing. Not too soon, and especially not in a place where the majority of small folks’ loyalty lied with a dead man in Trident.

“The loyal knight, our beloved Ser Davis, had been butchered inside the castle when he was manning the battlement.” The Lord Darry announced, clutching his gold-ringed fingers. He turned to me and gave a perfunctory glance to Ser Jaime behind me. “My guards on the battlement found these two men from your party with a rusted sword of blood in their hand.”

I had all these days assumed the Northerners had hatred only for me, but their vengeance for the South and anything that belonged to the crown was much worse than I’d imagined. Indeed, Pate and Walys were the ones who’d killed. Their murderous evil smile was all the proof that was needed, even without the obviousness that they had been caught red-handed.

“Aye, I killed, and Walys held him down to the throat!” Pate shrugged, rubbing his beard. “He boasted of killing my brother in the Trident. Ain’t my duty to serve justice for my dead brother?” Pate laughed—more like a maniac than a human.

“Ser Davis had been a knight of honor.” Lord Darry addressed me with simmering rage in his authority. “In the Trident, he brought down ten of those barbarians.” His finger pointed at _my_ Northern men and I was extremely displeased. They weren’t barbaric.

What was the Lord trying to extract from me?

“My Lady! I would order for the death of these two as justice, but they are your men and you have brought them with you. So, I leave you to give away justice.”

 _Oh, that!_ I couldn’t for my life’s reason kill them both, without earning the wrath of the rest of the guards accompanying me. And if I observed closely, the Lord Darry was testing where my loyalty lied. He’d given me a pleasurable chamber to rest, maids to serve, and now he wanted to learn of my own loyalty. In the North, my uncle never played such games with sixteen-year-olds. He gave them just sentences as he’d found fit, but then this was no more North.

“Let them take the Night’s Watch! The Wall needs every man possible to protect and even our King will agree on that.” I smiled with newfound confidence, although my thumb vigorously rubbed on the lost head of my little finger. “Of course, the court is yours, my lord. And your judgment will precede mine.”

Lord Darry gave a lop-sided, troubled grin before looking at the burly Northmen. “I concede with the Princess’s judgment. The men will be sent back to their rut to man the Wall, taking lifetime celibacy.”

The crowd disappeared soon, meanwhile; I instructed Jory to send eight more men to escort the culprits—especially the ones who were possible to bring more trouble. Jory was abashed and ashamed of the recklessness from the men he’d chosen for the journey, apologizing to me a hundred times for not being attentive.

It was fine. I managed to survive here.

No, that was unreasonable. I actually felt _powerful_ enough to make judgments.

It felt good to be in a place where I commanded respect, although I’d been worrying I would be denied of even the smallest pleasures that I got in North, fate had its way to prove me wrong. When I’d asked Lord Darry about his treatment of Sansa, he easily apologized and did the needed to make her feel comfortable, as though my words mattered. Of course, it mattered to him. And that was a privilege to me.

That night I’d slept dreaming again. But there were no nightmares in my dream. It was all about my family, of how they looked, of how they would treat me, of how I would be welcomed. And the dream was simply perfect.

For the two days’ stay in the castle, I had the privilege to sit with the Lord on his table, attend his court, and I truly relished in the comfort measures he took to provide me. Many lords and ladies arrived to see me—to speak with me. The Lord himself was well in his forty and had five children—four sons and a daughter—most of whom were already wed. The last girl was older than me but was desolate and deranged in her looks. The maids gossiped a lot and there were rumors about the lady’s extra-activities that eventually led her to become unfit to wed. But the girl was polite and even spoke cordially to me. Sometimes, she took us to her gardens and involved us in the stitching lessons, and even enquired about my family in the capital. Had I known at least one of them, I would have been eager to tell her, so I maintained a smile throughout.

Lord Darry was the first man to treat me to the worth of my station—with respect and reverie.

On the fourth day, replenishing our food supplies, we were about to carry on the journey, when the Lord found me brushing out the dirt from Ghost.

“My men were terrified of a Direwolf, my lady!” He chuckled, pointing to Ghost.

“She doesn’t harm anyone.” I maliciously lied, because Ghost wasn’t someone to be controlled. She was a free spirit.

“Well, the kennel master says otherwise.” The Lord offered his hand, taking me for a walk, and Ghost padded behind us, as though he would attack the man’s throat anytime I wanted him to. “I should be apologizing for how I treated you and your men.”

“You shouldn’t be, my Lord. They misused guest’s rights.”

The man laughed. “They didn’t. My Maester tells me that the two men didn’t even drink a cup of water in the feast. I guess they were prepared to pick a fight, and it wasn’t your fault.” He sighed voluntarily. “It is just… a while ago, your family had visited us.”

I squinted, not understanding who he meant. “You mean my father?”

“No…” The man shook his head. “The King isn’t coming anytime soon. It is my wish he does, so the rebel Lords know who is in the power. Rather, the King had sent your brother and your uncle with a Dornish lord and a bastard here.”

I assumed it was about Prince Aegon and Prince Viserys. It was so odd to hear them addressed as uncle and brother because I had no idea if they were truly were one to me.

“Pardon me for putting it bluntly, but the household was terrified of hosting another Royal member under our banners. Not to mention the sudden death of Ser Davis…”

“I understand…” I smiled, although I didn’t understand.

“We took the lands and titles from the Tullys, and all I expected was support from the crown—to inspire the people to follow the crown. But those—” Lord Darry’s chin trembled. “I was a loyal servant to the crown. I am still loyal because I fought and bled in the same river that feeds us food. But I don’t like my loyalty tested. And my Princess, I want you to convey this to your father.”

I gaped at his changed demeanor—at the blatant threat he was passing to the King through me, but I simply nodded, not wanting to ruffle his feather. Something happened here in this castle and my uncle Viserys and his companions, probably with the crown prince, had messed up with the man’s pride.

We had set on to our journey, but my mind and heart were oscillating. At the end of the moon, we finally reached our destination.

There were too many questions in my mind, but most of all to my father. As we stood by the hill, overlooking the city of Red Keep, Jaime approached me. “I don’t see the appeal of this rotten place.”

“You told the same about Winterfell, Ser Jaime.”

“Did I now?” He smirked, holding his horse’s reins tight as Ghost prowled and pranced about us. “I hate that dog of yours.” Jaime offered me a serious tone in my direction. “Listen! I don’t care for who sits there on that barbed chair. I have killed one whose ass was muddying the throne and I am ready to kill another one too. But I want you to be safe and alive. If you even guess you are in danger, you _will_ come to me.”

It was odd to feel that comfort, but I liked it, as though a savior was always next to me to protect me. I smiled wide like a child. “Thank you, Ser Jaime!”

“Don’t cry and make this sappy. You are like that dog to me. I hate you, but I can’t let anyone hurt you.” He mused awkwardly and rode off before I caught his smile back.


	5. First Trial And First Tear

The wide, rusted, Dragon gate of the rampart had been kept open as the party of forty gruntling Northerners rode past the ten feet thick city walls. A sense of foreboding loomed over me. A sense of being trapped. A sense of being locked, as the wide red walls with fierce dragon sculptures, hurried past my sight.

With my gloved fingers clutching tight on the harness, I allowed the horse to trot, as the looming view of three hills of my ancestors’ came with its majestic appearance.

As the party slowly slithered along the road beside the Rhaenys’s Hill where an extravagant broken bronze dome shimmered, all my previous foreboding and reasoning ceased to vanish. The old lessons learned from the withered Maester Luwin about the civil war where all the dragons perished into thin air, where the dragons broke their chains and left the control of the Targaryens loomed as imaginative roaring dragons appeared as wisps of smoke and air.

_Why did the dragons die?_

_Why did they cease to grow?_

As I came to think of it, did it even matter? Did it even matter if the dragons were just history?

There was no time to ponder, there was no time to wonder about what heart and mind sought, when one sight after the next, Kings Landing proved to be something beyond the control of nature.

_Chaos!_

Screaming people in tattered clothes.

Multiple luxurious wagons filled with rich merchants on the cobbled stone road.

On one side, the stench of filth and stagnant poverty while on the other side perfumed treachery of richness overfilled the chaos.

Everywhere I turned, I came to face the disorder that isolated me as an alien. Even though Winterfell was vaster and huge, it didn’t possess such an enormous number of distrusting eyes, or… scowling faces for that matter.

“Lya! Lya!” Sansa called from inside her wooden carriage, head peeping out of the window. “Did you see the Sept of Balor? Did you get a chance to look at the broken dome? The sun blinded me.” She gushed as her cheek painted pink with excitement.

“The sun blinded you, milady?” Mya snorted with her derisive tone. “The stench of this place almost killed me. What do they wash it with? Horse piss?”

“Oh, come on, Mya! Aren’t you being a killjoy?” I chided the raven-haired girl, who became sullen with my tone.

“We are on the poorer side of the road.” Sansa waved her hand in a dismissive manner. “Once we cross this and reach the Red Keep, all the stench will vanish. Speaking of which—” Sansa steered her eyes on me. “Why are you still not dressed?”

“The King will be ashamed to death to learn that his daughter has grey fur growing on her naked body.” I gleamed, rubbing my mild rabbit furred tunic and leather breeches, pointing out the obviousness that I was dressed, even overdressed.

“I meant a proper dress!” Sansa was appalled.

Before I tried to explain to her how we would have enough time to prepare and meet my family, or how I wouldn’t go blasting through the court with a week old ridden dirty cloth, and roughly swaying untidy hair, the party halted to an abrupt stop. We were already close to the Red Keep’s battlements. And I was sure within a fifty-foot distance we would be entering the castle walls.

My heart hammered again, like destiny and fate laughing at my cheekiness for disobeying their command, for dirtying their sinned city by setting foot. I slowly trotted along the sides, advancing to the front to see what could be the new disruption.

Part of me wanted to consider this a bad sign and return to the city gates through which I entered, but a sickly, needing, despaired part of me hoped beyond hope that my father was waiting in front to welcome his daughter who he’d missed for almost half his life, with a wide, warm embrace. Suddenly, I was conscious of my appearance. I didn’t want him to be disappointed. I didn’t want him to feel myself lacking for his status. Sansa was right in condemning me.

Slowly, as I crept to the front, Ghost ever taking my side, a voice boomed — an older voice in a commanding authority, and the Northerners gave a roar as a response, few of their hands darting to the hilt of their swords.

“It is the order from the King himself!” The man in question screamed, almost a hundred golden cloaks fluttering behind his back, as he shoved a parchment into Ser Jaime’s hand.

“The last I remembered, the Targaryen’s sigil—the King’s sigil was a three-headed dragon. When did they change it into a rooster?” Jaime scowled, examining the sealed parchment before tearing it open.

Rooster? For the life of me, I couldn’t gather what had happened to arouse the Northerner’s anger, or why the party had been halted. But if any sense of reality should hit me, a hundred golden cloaks, standing with their lances drawn behind a stern old man, who I assumed to be the Commander of the City Watch, didn’t look like a warm welcome with open arms.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ser Jaime crumpled the parchment, and I trotted close to him, impassive to react to anything.

He handed over the parchment at my request, which had words that made no sense at first glance. It had mentioned something about spies, enemies, the Northern army, and traitors.

“These men are escorting the Princess.” Jaime insisted once again.

“As I said, the Princess will be escorted, Ser Jaime.” The commander in control spat out the words with bitterness of being questioned, as his eyes raked my presence with a pinch of disinterest. “But, not those lots!”

At the blatant disrespect of the people who had come all the way to protect me—even if they’d begrudgingly accepted it—with such low-taste twitched every part of my sensible skin. “Those are my men, Ser! And no. I will not abandon them because you have a distrust of them.”

Ghost kept prowling in a circle around me, and every time she approached a golden cloak, they backed away, her majestic violent stature already threatening them.

Jaime held my elbow, instantly sensing my anger and danger erupting like a volcano around the air. The bitter guard marched his horse right in my direction, his sneer widening.

“You have to take your grievances to the King, my lady.” His perfunctory glance moved to the guards behind me. “Until then, they will be checked and guarded in the dungeons below.”

The man ordered the golden cloaks to surround our party, and Jory was already commanding the Northern men to follow the orders. To my chagrin, few of the Northern men who’d protested were mollified by Jory’s command.

“No! You cannot—” I demanded.

Jaime pulled the reins of my horse close towards him. “Stop fighting this unwanted battle!”

“It’s unfair. They did nothing wrong, Jaime. They came here just to protect me.”

“Now is not the time. We will be overpowered. Allow Ser Alliser to do his duty.”

Each Northerner was flanked by two gold cloaks after their weapons were seized towards the dungeons of the Red Keep. Five golden cloaks surrounded my horse, as though they were trying to guard me.

But I knew it well. I knew what was happening. Even a fool would know what this treatment meant. Just like that, all my hopes had once again crushed. Fate had once again lashed its fat fist and grabbed the last ounce of my self-respect.

“Is this how the Royal family welcomes their guests?” I hissed at the guards, who showed indifference to my anger, while their eyes measured Ghost’s enormity around me.

“Welcome to King’s Landing, my lady!” An aged man with fiery red hair, which was graying here and there, arrived at the spot where I was standing with Jaime, in a palfrey.

I was annoyed, angered, repulsed, and if I had a chance to wriggle my way out from Jaime’s iron-clad grasp around my elbow, I would have thrown myself to battle at the very sarcastic jeer from the man in front— _whoever the hell he was_.

“Lord Connington!” Jaime addressed, his tone neutral. “Has the King ordered you to welcome his daughter too? What an unlucky predicament?”

“Oh, I am here in my own interest, Ser!”

“You do seem to take a lot of interest on the King’s behalf, Ser.” Jaime chuckled.

“Comes with the duty as the Hand of the King!” Lord Connington casually dismissed with a wave of his hand. “We both know how unlikely it is for you to understand the meaning of duty.” The Hand of the King mirthfully grinned, and just as he wished to taunt Jaime’s pride, it instantly worked, as evident with Jaime’s grip tightening on my elbow, bruising it purple, his anger clearly crossing lines to contain.

I wished so many things would happen then. Probably let Ghost pounce on the red-haired man’s throat and bring a blood bath down the road for insulting me. Probably asking Jaime to flank me, as I bring down the last of the golden cloak and reach my father in the Red Keep, so I could point my sword to his chest, for insulting me, shaming me, over and over and over.

All my cunning thoughts were knocked off as the carriage in which Sansa, Mya, and Jeyne Poole resided, rode past me, and I instantly drove, urging my horse to move, still fighting with Jaime’s hold on my elbow. At that singular moment, when the carriage passed, I saw Sansa’s ocean blue orbs through the window, glistening with tears full of fear and anxiety, the hope to see a new world destroying down, the hope of a naïve love already starting to diminish with the harsh reality of wicked men and cruel world. A drop of her tear fell through her red cheeks, and it hurt me. It hurt me to see myself in her, when all the times I’d been mistreated, when all the times I’d been denied of any respect or worth for my presence on this cruel earth.

I wriggled against Jaime’s tight bound arm, almost screaming at him for being a coward, almost asking Ghost to take a part of Jaime’s heart for stopping me from reaching Sansa, my cousin, the girl with whom I grew up sharing silly tales of Prince and Knights, singing odd songs of all sorts, and dancing with a new gown that came to town.

“Ease, my lady!” Lord Jon Connington cast his odd gaze at me. “The Stark girl will be escorted to her chamber, safely…” He paused, turning to see Ser Alliser Thorne’s horse riding next to the carriage. “Of course, after the Septas declare the ladies won’t cause any harm.”

“What do you mean by declare?” I roared and the horse between my legs neighed, resonating with my fighting anger, legs swinging high in the air. Jaime still held my arms, still trying to control me, rather to fight. What happened to the man who kept calling everyone for a fight in Winterfell? “Jaime, release me now. If anything happens to Sansa—”

“Is that a threat, my lady?” Lord Jon enquired, utterly unabashed by my anger, but more enthused with my declaration of a fight. It was… as though… he wanted me to fight.

I wanted nothing less, but Jaime kept me grounded, not letting my emotions be unfurled or to release a monster in my wake. Lord Connington might not have cared for my anger, but he had to put enormous effort into controlling his palfrey, which wanted not to be anywhere near a grown dire wolf, baring its teeth.

Jaime barked at the guards, who raised their lances at me while I made a good staring contest with the Lord Connington, deciding if his last of five gold cloaks would be sufficient for my Ghost, me and Jaime.

Not even before setting foot inside the Red Keep, I learned that I earned an enemy for myself. Lord Jon Connington, the Hand of the King, the lord of Griffins, was challenging me to bring on a fight.

With a whip of hot air, and plummeting horses’s shoes against the cobblestoned road, filled with common-folks waiting for a fight to happen, I heard another group of men ordering for the people gathered to disappear.

_“And now, little girls are frightening you, Lord Connington?”_

I turned around to hear the source of such a commanding voice, a dialect that was far Southern rather than belonging to King’s Landing, and sure enough, the owner of that tone was not a Crownlander, nor from anywhere north of King’s Landing. With a spear piercing the sun for arms and shimmering bronze skin, flanked by seven Southern guards of his own, a man dripping with whimsy and poison in his tongue landed with ease from his Dornish black steed on the cobbled path, walking with careless edge towards the five gold cloaks, and a grumbling Hand of the King.

“Did you come all the way to overthrow my authority here?” The Hand shivered, pointing his finger at the Dornish lord.

“I surely must apologize. Your authority is well fit for only terrorizing children and little girls. Isn’t it?”

My anger evaporated, my trepidations almost lost its cues to exist on a battlefield, and I wanted nothing more than to wake up from this horrible dream.

I knew this was unjust. I knew this was disrespectful. I knew this was how enemies were always treated. And I had been treated worse than this, always seeking respect, always hoping to be loved. Yet… yet… against all odds, I’d somehow fooled myself to demand it. Somehow presumed my father was more than that, or even better than anyone else I’d met.

“You must forgive our Hand’s lack of hospitality and a heightened sense of humor, my lady.” The Prince of Dorne gave a bowing gesture while extending his hand towards me.

I followed cue, as Jaime’s hold on my elbow loosened, which the Dornish lord did not fail to notice. My cheeks burned at the way the Dornish Prince raised his brows, which went up to his widow’s peak.

“This will be taken to the King, Lord Oberyn.” Lord Connington warned.

“Hurry up, my lord. Take it to the court sooner. We don’t want to delay a father and daughter’s reunion. Do we?” The Prince chuckled. “And don’t forget to take back your puppets.”

Lord Connington whispered silent curses and turned around towards the castle, the golden cloaks emptying the pathway, leaving only Ser Jaime and Ghost around me. I smoothened Ghost’s snowy fur, consoling her as a way of calming my nerves, while her red eyes were now newly directed on the new intruder, baring teeth at him to step away from my vicinity.

“That beast doesn’t seem to like me or anyone. All ready to rip off someone’s throat, it seems.” Prince Oberyn lamented.

“That is surely an exaggeration, considering my beloved father sent a hundred men to keep me arrested in a dungeon, Ser.” I spat away at his insincere apologies.

The man smiled with a terrible satisfaction on seeing me blast out, but his eyes were calculative of everything around me. The fact that he was the Queen’s brother wasn’t helping me to create any good acquaintance either.

“Spoken like a true Northerner. True to heart and no fancy lies.” Even his pleasant compliments felt like an insult to my pride. “If you would allow me, I shall escort you to your chambers.” He climbed back on his tall steed with greater elegance.

It disturbed me that he wasn’t refusing my claims, nor did he insist that the set of events had nothing to do with my King father. Unwilling to let him know how much I was disturbed or how much I was disappointed, I climbed on my own destrier with a fury tingling along with my fingers to crash down the entire castle if something would happen to people who came to trust me. Especially to Sansa…

Ser Jaime came closer, dragging me farther from the party, his eyes burning down on Prince Oberyn, and on the surroundings, the long-sword being drawn already, expecting an attack to happen.

“This is what I have been warning you all along.” He chided. “Nevermind, we still have a chance…” He eyed the Dornish guards. “I will bring you to someplace safe and you shall write a missive to your uncle—”

“Jaime!” I had to stop him controlling me at every chance he’d got. “Sansa is taken to God knows where. And there are forty men, probably arrested in the dungeons for God knows how long. They came for me, Jaime.”

I knew Jaime would not care. He had less care for Northern men who’d hated him, even lesser for Sansa whose name he’d probably forgotten. But he exhaled out a long sigh. “The Stark girl will probably be in the Maidenvault. They might also keep you there. How will you help her, if you are given no choice and kept along with her?”

“I will find a way. We will find a way.” I promised, not bothering to look at his eyes. “We cannot fight by running away.” I thought for a moment about everything that had happened since I left Winterfell, trying to make some logical sense. What would have Robb done in my place? What would Ned Stark have done in my place? What would anyone sensible would do in my place?

I cleared my throat and gave a cold, penetrating summon. “I want you to go to Sansa. She must be scared. Very scared, in fact. Ask her not to panic. Ask her not to worry. And be with her.” Jaime scowled, ready to defy and slap some sense into me. “Please, Jaime. Don’t ask questions. Just do it.”

“Do you think I will obey orders from the brat who I slapped bloody and purple?”

“No! It is a sensible request. And I know, you will do it for my sake.” He was ready to scoff again, but I denied giving him another chance to mock me. “Because I am not leaving anywhere from this place without Sansa. Even if that will be the death of me.”

For all the times he had put his neck to save me, protect me, and guard me, I knew he wouldn’t ever risk my life for anything else. “You have more of your foolish uncle in your blood than your father.” He bellowed out before seeing the Dornish man who was awaiting to escort me. “Do not trust anyone! Especially the Red Viper. Find me before sunset, else I will find you… and then we are leaving this rotten place.”

Once he left, his white cloak swishing out in the crisp morning air, I followed Prince Oberyn and his men, mind reeling to find a calm place that had never been within me. I had to force myself to stop raging, to stop cursing, to stop spinning out of control.

“I suppose, Ser Jaime has gone to the aid of Lady Sansa Stark.” Prince Oberyn muttered, his gaze still directed on the white cloak of Jaime. “Towards the Maidenvault—” He pointed. “I suppose your chambers are not allocated there, my lady.”

“That’s kind of you to know, my lord.”

“Oh, I must apologize. This is not kindness. I am well aware of where the high-born ladies are kept as prisoners in the Red Keep. You see, my sister, _your Queen_ —” He insisted on the last word in much-pressed warning than others, searching for any sign of refusal on my features, before he continued. “—Elia Martell was once arrested too, albeit in a different part of the castle. All the same, though.”

For a fine moment, I had considered him to be a saviour— _of a sort_ —to rescue from the evil red-haired monster. And of course, I was a fool to allow myself to trust the Red Viper, even for the slightest bit.

“I never knew the Queen of Seven Kingdoms could be arrested, my Prince.”

“You must have lived in a safer place then. Welcome to the city of rat’s nest. Kings will be killed, murderers will wear the white cloak of honor. What is a helpless woman locked in a safe tower?”

There was a slight strain of resentment and anger in his voice, like a slow poison emanating through his demeanor, and somehow I knew how that could be. Somehow I knew why he came all the way before anyone to meet me personally. To see me, to warn me, to threaten me or to _slay_ me… if needed.

“Are we not going to the Maegor’s holdfast? There should be a fine chamber for you there. A different one than that of your dear cousin’s.” He asked, sensing my horse riding towards the majestic Great Hall.

“I thought we agreed that no helpless women should be arrested in a tower. I don’t want my cousin to be tortured, in the name of protection, my Prince.”

“Of course, you don’t.” He looked amused, even eager to know what I was going to do. I didn’t acknowledge his amusement or encourage his curiosity. As far as I considered, he was also my enemy until proven otherwise.

God, I hated this place. My uncle was right… in fact, totally right. He was right when he accused this place of rotten with viper’s nest filled with treachery, betrayal and backstabbing.

* * *

There were several circumstances I had dreamed of meeting my family that I never got a chance of knowing. When I’d been young, I’d always thought my father would burn down the castle of Winterfell one day, for bringing forth pain to his beloved daughter. And, he would take me back to his high castle, promising of no more pain and hurt and abundance of endless love and care.

When I’d begun learning dragons were just a history, and I was a bastard, I still dreamed of my father sending all the white cloaks to escort me back to the Red Keep, because he couldn’t bear the thought of living without his daughter in the image of his beloved mistress. And he’d shower me with gold and rubies to show the world how much he’d cared for me.

When I’d finally saw the proof that he’d always tried to reach out, all those buried dreams and desires had danced wickedly. All those monsters burned to come true for real.

But never, ever, had I once dreamed, even in a near possible way, that I would walk down the aisle of the Throne room, with spectators of high lords and ladies, in their silk sewn bejeweled clothes, and perfumed phony appearance, and accusing eyes to blame me for my presence, _to ask for justice_.

In my week ridden soft woolen jacket, leather breeches, and knee-length heeled boots that softly thudded for each step to silence the Great Hall, I appeared out of place, out of world, unbelonging than I’d been in Winterfell. Ghost brushed close to me, ready to strike down any guards who were ready with their lances pointed to attack, I earned several audible gasps and whispers of ‘beast’, ‘barbaric’, ‘bastard’, thrown effortlessly in my direction, along with the herald’s loud cry of my titles, and my arrival to the court.

None of this would deter me from proceeding—from seeking the goal. None of their taunts and jeers would make me a fool for not going closer to the throne.

The Iron throne was what they had said—majestic, cruel, build on a thousand swords to unite the realms. But all those feelings of surprise were suppressed, when I had my gaze focused clear and set on the man sitting on the barbed chair, with elegance and grace, kindness and nobility, and more importantly with oozing charisma of threatening power and strength.

The fingers that were set on his knee speedily tapped, and the three headed dragon ring on the forefinger resembling the one he’d sent me, glimmered as ruby eyes caught the light. That small, minuscule detail of connection to me with my father, somehow, elated me even amidst the frightening change of events.

I stood in front of the Iron Throne, taking my full measure of what I’d always yearned to witness, or whom I had always hoped to meet, with a bit of frustration and anger that I’d once again disappointed of how I had wanted to know him. Even in front of Prince Oberyn I was able feign indifference to not let my guard down, but when I found my father’s astonishingly purple orbs, which were quite shocked or even surprised to an extent at my presence, I couldn’t feign my anger.

Perhaps he was as disappointed as me. Perhaps he didn’t like my attire, which—to tell the truth—no proper lady would even think of wearing. Because with the way his eyes travelled every inch of my body, from head to toe, taking his eyes full of what I have grown up to be, and even measuring the towering wolf half the size of a horse beside me, I just couldn’t bring myself to be delighted of how I appeared, although his face did not spell out a direct offense. It exhibited more of a curiosity or, if I dared to tell, a little fear combined with fascination as though I had been the ghost he had avoided in his dreams.

There were two girls sitting beneath him, on the stairs of the throne, one after the other. I didn’t even need to guess who they were or what they were doing sitting next to the King. Yet, at that singular moment, when I found them decorated in ornaments of gold and glimmering stones, soft silks of rich embroidery with golden threads wrapping them in curves, each owning a circlet crown of their own, a pang of thirst pulled inside my stomach at the realization of what I was— _a mere bastard_.

“Princess Visenya!” Lord Connington moved towards the dais, his menacing eyes full of rage. “It is a pleasant delight to finally meet you.” He acted as though he was meeting me for the first time. “Yet, my lady, I insist you that the Royal court is for addressing grievances and matters of higher importance. The court is already disturbed by your presence, and of your wolf’s.” The Hand moved a few feet farther at the sight of Ghost. “Let us not terrorize the gentle courtiers.” He awarded of sheepish smile that never reached his eyes.

He was an awful liar and everyone in the court— _if sensible_ —could make out his intention much clearly.

Although, I was not swayed. “I appreciate your good heart and gentle soul, my lord. Although, assuming Ghost hadn’t tasted the men who you had ordered to arrest me, I can assure you that she is as gentle as _you_ to not cause any harm to anyone.”

A girl on the throne snickered at my answer, and I met the young Targaryen lady, who had a similar appearance of my father, with silver-blonde hair and purple orbs, the back of her hand muffling the noise that came out of her mouth. The entire court took her amusement as they all jeered at the Hand’s embarrassment.

Lord Connington’s face went red. “What is the meaning of that?”

“I am definite that I got your message well, when you brought a hundred men behind you to arrest me.” I glowered. “Or are you telling you haven’t taken the Northern guards who accompanied me to the dungeons?”

“The Northern traitors, you mean?” The Hand bellowed, his scowl deepening. “You better be happy that I haven’t executed them yet.” He turned towards the throne. “Your Grace, it was wise of us to capture them before they acted. All of them owned secret weapons in their ragged tunics. You have to look at these odd little weapons they carry. Not a long sword or a dagger, it was just small, handy, fitting right in their palms—” The man ranted, but the King did not hear a word of him. The King’s eyes—the deep purple as I observed—were all set on me, crucially examining me, gathering every reaction of mine, every aspect of my stature, absorbing the good and bad. And I loathed that my father wasn’t stopping such baseless accusations.

“I thought the Hand would know the difference between kitchen cooks and veteran soldiers who went to war. They didn’t come to cook for me, my Lord. They came to protect me, ready to sacrifice their life. Of course, they were going to have more than a weapon or two.” I bit out.

Lady Daenerys gave a hearty laugh, and the Hand became terse at her mocking manner. On the other hand, the Princess Rhaenys was still sitting stiff and erect, her stunning beauty being marred by coldness of her posture.

“Are you teaching me how to do my duty?” The Hand accused.

“No.” I said firmly. “I am accusing you of causing trouble to the Northern men and to my cousin, Lady Sansa Stark, with baseless and biased judgements.”

“Baseless and biased?” He chuckled. “Are you going to deny that two of those traitors killed a leal and loyal Riverlander knight under the pretense of guest right? Are you going to deny that Lord Ned Stark has no ulterior motive in sending you here after sixteen years?”

My throat became parched. How did he become aware of the incident in the castle Darry? Would the Lord have sent a missive here before our arrival? Somehow, I couldn’t picture the lord doing it, considering he was wroth enough to send a warning to the King through me. Assuming that the Lord Connington didn’t even know the name of the knight, I was sure he got it through other means.

“Cat got your tongue, my lady?” The Hand mused. I wanted to control the impulse that was bursting through my veins. My fingers were twitching at my father’s silence. The King’s impolite and crude observation of things unfolding in front of him, without a word told, encouraged the Southerners in the court to take the Hand’s side. For a pregnant moment, I wished I could do what I’d always wanted to do. To punch my father’s jaw and see if he would show any reaction other than just looking at me like an object of rarity.

“Didn’t I warn you, Your Grace?” The Hand spared a glance at the King. “I am sure even the Princess needs proper cleansing after all the time she had spent with the traitor and his family.”

I flexed my gloved hand tight, trying as hard as I could to force my shaking jaw to utter the words that I wanted, rather to kick his bloody mouth.

“My uncle, Eddard Stark, is the honorable most man in the Seven Kingdoms. And if I hear you accuse him of being a traitor one more time—”

“Ah… the warnings. Your Grace must duly note that the Princess has been warning ever since I met her of some premonition or some threat she is yet to unleash.”

My father hadn’t said a word. Even now, he was simply observing, all the six white cloaks behind him in silent contribution, and the court soon began to whisper in yet another chaotic argument.

“I have not brought any threat other than your own presumption of seeing a lion in a cat’s form.” I said with uncertainty.

“Yet, all the proofs point out your uncle’s traitorous motive. Who sends fifty guards to escort a child?” He mocked.

“Anyone who has sense.”

“And what sense is that? To suddenly incite war? Or to grab power after executing the royal blood?”

“Common sense, my lord. And if you have any of that, you would know no one has sent me or the guards to execute anyone.”

“Oh, I have a lot of that particular sense you have mentioned. I know from what kind of people you have come from.” He approached me, his eyes glinting with pleasure, taking the King’s silence as approval.

“What are you insinuating?”

“You tell me, Princess. What is the plan for such a grand exhibit, after sixteen years? What is your plan to come with fifty guards? Or are you convincing me that Lord Eddard Stark has sent the traitor’s bastard all the way to King’s Landing, for no reason?”

My patience withered at his stupidity and even more at the court’s stupidity at even listening to his baselessness. “I have nothing to say, other than to demand the King to release the Northern men, immediately, and my cousin Sansa Stark to be treated with respect.”

“And you dare to demand this from the King of Seven Kingdoms? Have you not got any respect for the crown?” He threatened.

Blood flowing through each part of my vein, eyes red as sin, I directed my gaze towards the throne. “Oh yes. I surely demand his Grace to release the Northern guards. And I demand him to be much more respectful in welcoming his guests, rather than sending bigoted, half-rotten paranoic lunatics to arrest loyal men and high-born women at whims of fancy. I demand him to do his duty as a King and a father.”

The unfaltering gaze of my father suddenly mellowed and glinted with familiarity, but the white cloaks behind him tensed for being disrespectful of the crown and the King. The court erupted in loud noise of objection for demeaning the court. Even Princess Rhaenys, who had nothing but contempt on her face, glared at me for my stupid tongue.

“How dare you accuse the King?” The man moved in anger towards me. “Being brought up by a traitor, I can’t expect anything less from you.”

“Stop calling him a traitor.”

“Ned Stark is nothing but a traitor. Sending a woman to do his bidding. What else do you call him? Do you think I am a fool? Hiding behind a woman’s skirt to accomplish his vengeance.”

I bristled and my temper lost the last bit of sanity as he approached towards me, his eyes red as his hair. His temperament lost its edge as he inched closer to insanity.

“You are nothing but his spawn. Just as barbaric and traitorous as those Northern savages.”

It happened in flashes of seconds. One moment the Hand in his madness accusing me by raising his finger to brandish me as a barbarian, and another moment he was lying on the floor, Ghost knocking him out, standing on its four legs, claws digging into his skin.

I was quicker than my instinct would have granted me and kept a hand right on Ghost’s snow white fur to not let him catch the Hand’s throat, who was screaming curses, still blubbering like a madman. Right at the same moment, the Kingsguards began unsheathing their swords.

I remembered Jaime at that moment, of how he’d warned me not to be stupid, to not let my emotions control me, and just like he’d expected, I’d made every single mistake. At that moment, though, I knew Ghost was as likely to die than to see another day and till I would live I would fight for her life as she would fight for me.

Without second thoughts, I unsheathed my own sword glinting of gold and a lion’s pommel, waiting for the Kings guards to launch at me, readying myself to face this fight, eyes going around every one’s stern gaze wondering which one could I bring down. The guards didn’t rain down on me, as I was expecting, but rather a few grinned at how stupid I was, already underestimating that I was a girl and more likely to make a good humor than to fight a battle.

And God, did I not want to prove to them my strength. Even if I would die, I wanted to show what I was capable of. I was trained by Ser Jaime Lannister, after all—the finest hand in the whole Seven Kingdoms.

_“Enough!”_

The iron tone of my father pierced like ice tips to the last person of the murmuring crowd that silence was brought at once. He rose from the throne, and both the Princess followed his cues, coming down step after another. Standing behind their King, the girls were exhibiting every ounce of authority as much as the King himself, and the subtlety was not lost on me of their demonstration of authority as the Royal blood with the favour of their King.

“There will be no more blood spilled in the court. _Especially that of mine._ ” His eyes penetrated my own.

I didn’t grasp his meaning for a moment until his eyes landed nowhere but in my gray eyes. Realizing the King’s orders, the Kingsguards behind lowered their swords and retreated back. Slowly and gradually, I lowered my own.

“The court seemed to have rejoiced more than their share, today.” He examined the crowd. “And as for the Princess’s demands—” He bit his words quite menacingly and did not forget to raise his brow for such improper behaviour at me. “It challenges the morality of my rule. Lord Commander Ser Alliser Thorne!” He called for the same gray-haired knight, who I hated even more than before, and he shared the same feeling as he measured me with displeasure. “I do not wish to hear another accusation of loyal men arrested with no base, Ser. Release the knights who came protecting my daughter all the way from the North and provide them with the needed arrangements for their stay here, as long as they wish.”

The knight instantly bowed and left the long throne room. The King’s gaze faltered towards a man in the court crowd, with a hooded black cloak hiding his features, and just like me, Princess Daenerys followed his gaze.

“Daenerys!” King Rhaegar called back the Princess’s attention. “I have no doubts Lady Sansa Stark is panicked and dare I say, shocked of all the events. Will you be kind enough to take her to the royal apartments and ensure that she is taken care?”

The silver-haired Princess gave a hearty grin, playful chuckles coming out as she dipped down for a charming curtesy. “And shall I escort my niece to her chamber too?” She enquired, looking at my disheveled, the most non-feminine form, making my cheeks go red in shame.

“Ah, that!” King Rhaegar walked close to me. “Will the lady forgive my Hand’s misgivings in not figuring out truth from lies and ask that creature of hers to spare his life?”

His tone was charming, and no anger—even traces of it were not present. I gently patted on Ghost’s back, who was still baring her teeth at Lord Connington’s face, which had long back frozen to amazement, and he was clever enough to not incite more struggle, else even I wasn’t sure if I could control my direwolf. Ghost came down and whirled around my legs, still wary of the surrounding people. I petted her snow fur, and unrelenting as she was, for quite some time, she began calming down under my hard fingers, before I found Lord Connington standing on his legs, showering murderous gaze at me.

“That beast will not see another day!” He announced.

“Jon!” For my father’s words, the Lord tensed.

“Your Grace, you must see what the beast is capable of.”

“Anyone is capable of killing, if you keep pushing them to do the act, Jon.” At those words, the Hand frowned, as though he was wounded. “Seek for the Grand Maester for those wounds, and I am sure you can forgive the hotblood of the youth. Don’t you?”

Not even hours before I was about to be arrested, the guards escorting me kept in dungeons, my cousin locked as a prisoner, and my mother’s maiden family tarnished for taking a different side in war, and within a flick of his finger, the King managed to change everything.

I didn’t like the feeling of it. I didn’t like anything here. The fact that I was powerless, and I had to justify in front of the court, and raise a sword, only to be fixed just like that, made the resentment in me to boil. Had I ever got a chance to change my life with such power, I would have lived a better life—a respectful one, just like the Princesses who’d got a position to sit on the Iron Throne.

“Of course, Your Grace.” The Hand was ready to please the King, even if he truly would rather dip me inside a boiling water.

“That being said—” The King moved to the crowd of lords and ladies in attendance. “There is no more joy than having my family together and close. And Princess Visenya’s arrival will strengthen our ties to the North, I am sure. To celebrate the occasion of her arrival, we will have a feast on the morrow.”

Delighted for unknown reasons, the crowd laughed and talked in delighted voices, and my eyes moved to the hooded man, before finding a few Highgarden sigils, and the Stormlanders sigils amongst the crowd.

Princess Rhaenys, in her gold spun silk that showed her rich bronze skin, elegantly walked towards the King and whispered a few inaudible words, before bowing in a curtsey and directing me with an accusing, pointed stare.

That single pointed cold stare was enough for me to cower, reminding me of the status that everyone in my life had over and over repeated, reminding me of the powerless life I’d to live just moments ago, mocking me of how undeserving I was to receive any attention.

For the first time, I realized even the words unsaid could hurt as much as the wrong words said.

She removed herself from the throne room, and a few of the ladies ran down from their stands to accompany her, throwing cold daggers just like her.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand why you put up with that fool.” Princess Daenerys brought me back to the court, to my father, who had eyes at me, longingly lingering once again just as he’d done during the trial.

“He is a war commander, Dany. And my Hand. Correct your language before—”

Princess Daenerys rolled her eyes and glowered at the retreating form of Lord Connington, who was frightening another group of young lords in the court.

“Serves him right to be humiliated. The man is always terrorizing everyone and poking his nose in all unwanted matters.”

“Dany! How many times—”

“Alright, alright! I solemnly promise you that I won’t tell the truth to you anymore.” She raised her hand in admission of defeat, and even I couldn’t stop the grin from escaping. “I promise you, Visenya, I will bring big bones to your wolf for doing the one thing that I’d always wanted to do.”

How was I to explain to her that my direwolf doesn’t get wavered with bones?

“A direwolf is no hound. And I am sure you will lose your hand before you pet it. Besides, you will stop this attitude of undermining Jon in front of the court.” King Rhaegar condemned his sister, like condemning his own mischievous child. As much as I was jealous seeing their close relationship, I couldn’t bring myself to hate Daenerys. She was emanating as much charm as the King himself.

“Alright. Now, Visenya, I can’t wait to show your chambers and I have prepared it close to mine—actually right next to mine. We can share the parlour and you have to accept my handmaids. Of course, my beloved brother, did not mention anything about Lady Sansa’s arrival. But I assure you, we can make arrangements for her close to us—”

I smiled, suddenly all the tiredness of the journey crashing down on my shoulder.

“Ser Jaime’s sword.” The King opened his palm, his eyes resting on the lion head pommel. My eyes moved to the Kingsguards right behind him, a few of whom were eager in observing me, just like how my father had been, and I slowly surrendered the sword to him. “Where did he go?” He enquired with curiosity.

I didn’t want to answer him. Father he might be, but telling it seems to be giving up on my secret. “He accompanied Sansa to the Maidenvault.”

“And he gave you this sword to protect yourself?”

Answering that seemed to be giving away something personal to the person who’d relished a fleshy part of the court hours, where I had been put down and mocked and suffered with helplessness. Of course Jaime didn’t give me the sword at the last minute to protect myself. He awarded it for unarming him the first time, back when I was vengeful enough to try. But why would I share such sweet moments that were personal to only me and Jaime with a stranger who had all the power to bring me back but had never tried?

Realizing I wasn’t going to answer his question, the King gave a sad smile, full of remorse and regret written on his face, and I collected the golden sword, hurrying in panic, ready to bolt away from the place, ready to escape far away from him. The chase and glory of seeking something that I’d lost soon began weighing down on my chest like a mountain that I’d always carried since birth. I badly wanted to loosen it to the ground, without anyone bearing witness to it.

“Take rest. The journey must be taxing you. We shall meet on the morrow, in the feast.”

I nodded, holding up my dignity in front of the rest, and mentally thanked him for not letting me to shed down even those angry tears that were so up to my chest, before taking long steps towards the exit, while Princess Daenerys came right next to my other side, ranting about the ladies who she had already planned on introducing to me.

The moment I reached the Maidenvault and found Sansa, I launched onto her, hugging as tight as possible, whispering apologies for my stupidness in bringing her in the first place, against my uncle’s wishes.

Sansa only gave an odd smile with no anger, and we were escorted back to the Meagor’s Holdfast, where Daenerys showed me to my chamber. I waited for all the questions to die down, from Jaime, from Sansa, from Mya and at last when they’d all settled down after I gave vague answers, they left the chamber. Finally, alone to my own thoughts, I entered the bath chamber and slithered down on the cold stone, and all my pent up anger, panic, the hurdles, the pain began swimming down as salt tears.

I sobbed till I felt tired enough to even move, not even half-understanding why was I so sad, even if there was a spark of joy in my heart. So many more questions were on my mind, but I was sure I could deal with it later. Somehow I knew I could do this. The set of events that happened today was the proof of it. I was sure, my uncle would have definitely appreciated of my braveness even if it was the stupidest thing to do.


	6. The Circlet Crowns

Golden streaks fell on my face, illuminating the paleness of my skin, showering its sharp humidity in the air. The sea wind breeze was stringing melodic music, and I basked in the morning sunlight so delightedly that I wanted to curl up for some more time under the covers.

The sun, the brightness, the salt wind, the humidity were all beautiful in their own way.

The long painted windows opened into a porch facing a garden below. It appeared to be a paradise lying inside, hearing the ominous hoots of screeching owls and chirping birds.

I didn’t want to wake up and face whatever was about to come of the day. A part of me was already tired of trying to reach the fruit that I may not get to taste. It would all end up in vain. Every dream of mine had shattered, and all that pending was nightmares to be discovered.

_What madness had gotten into me to come here? What foolishness had made me demand my place here?_

Ghost nuzzled her nose into my neck, tired of being locked up in the chamber. She had been distressed and panicked, and she howled the entire night, for even the slightest movement outside the chamber.

“What am I going to do with you?” I asked, my fingers curling along the snow fur of Ghost’s mane. “You are going to bring trouble. Aren’t you?”

Ghost cocked her head, as though if I had any right to ask such a question and she haughtily jumped away from my warm fingers that she often loved when I would curl it beneath her fur.

To my surprise, Mya, who was supposed to be sleeping next to me, entered the door. The raven-haired girl looked morose and brusque, a frown pasted on her mumbling lips before she found my bed-ruffled hair and managed very hard to gather a hint of a smile.

“Did the birds wake you up too, Lya?” She knelt to pet Ghost, who pranced hungrily around her fingers. “Nasty little buggers. Didn’t let me sleep the whole night. Our Ghost could make a delicious meal out of them! Screeching, pooping, and spilling feathers all around the porch. I wish Ghost had some wings about her, to hunt those fat owls.”

“Wouldn’t that be lovely? Wings to fly,” I pondered, moving towards the long mirror to do something about my tangled hair, before wondering about breakfast.

“Aye! I would fly back to the North. Else to the Eyrie.”

I paused from picking at the fallen strands of my hair. There was a longing in the girl’s voice, a tint of pain and anger bursting out through her skin. For all the days she’d whined about traveling, I didn’t think it was to do anything more than merely disliking change of place.

Mya Stone was my friend. A good one. Unlike being with Sansa, where I had to pretend to be nice and lovely, I was more myself with Mya. It had always been fun to blubber non-sense and crass words without any care for propriety along with her. It hurt that I couldn’t see what she was feeling until now.

“Mya” My voice slipped faintly.

“I never knew…” Her muffled voice was growing thick. “I mean, I should’ve…” She stared up at me. “I saw through my eyes how the Northerners hated you.”

I flinched at the mere mention of it. It somehow ruffled my feathers. The vulnerability of being told of my weakness made me look pathetic, and I didn’t want to look like a fool, even if it was in front of my dear friend.

“But I truly never thought it was _this_ tough.” She exasperated, not looking into my eyes. “You are made of tougher skin than me, Lya. I admit. You smiled all through it. Didn’t you? It ain’t matter if our fathers loved us or not. It ain’t matter if _we_ loved our fathers or not. It hurts like a bitch whenever someone speaks ill about our own flesh and blood. Doesn’t it?”

My throat and stomach both ached at her confession.

I knew I should console her. I knew I should ask more about what had happened. That’s what we were there for. To help each other and just be there when needed. But I was lost, and the pain of every insult and every assault washed over me as though opening a barricaded flood.

The worst was that none in my family had an idea of what I’d faced surviving in the North. The more I thought about my vicious family living a life of comfort in huge-castle, where men and women chaperoned their whims, my eagerness to prove myself worthy to them was already turning to ashes.

Mya looked as horrible as Ghost.

“How about we three go for a ride?”

That was the only consolation I could provide. That was what Jaime had taught me to do when I was so angry at this unjustified world.

“Now?” Mya enquired, the paleness of her face vanishing. “I mean, yes! Oh, Ser Jaime is not there to take us.”

“Ser Jaime is not needed to take us.” I countered, annoyed by the fact that she thought of me to be always pining on Jaime’s help.

“Ooooh, I like this. We are breaking the rules. Should we take Lady Sansa too?”

“You are spoiling all the fun, Mya!” I glowered, and Mya rushed to the wooden crests, searching for garbs that would fit for a ride.

“Anyway, the lady is already dressed. You should see her complaining Jeyne Poole for not properly decorating her hair.”

“It is early morning. Why would she be dressed already?”

“I don’t know,” Mya muttered before rushing to an adjacent chamber to change her clothes.

I thought of meeting Sansa, but my cousin would ruin all the plans. She practically worshiped the rule book that her mother and Septa wrote, and by the looks of it, Sansa should already be trying on her evening gown and would force me to do the same.

Besides, I didn’t want to take Sansa on my adventure. It somehow didn’t sit well with me. I wanted this to be my own journey, and I wanted to take all the blame if my father would condemn me. A vicious part of my head questioned if I was risking my name, manners, and safety just to be called off by my father. I shoved away that question, not ready to face it, and gave myself a moment of appreciation before we three took off towards the Red Keep’s gate.

* * *

There was that thrill so similarly close to how I’d felt when I sat in Lord Darry’s high seat and gave away judgment. The power to touch fire, without knowing if it was going to burn me or merely warm me. Evading Jory, who to my horror was guarding my chamber, we had picked destriers and pranced the city.

The moment Ghost left the gates, she had swirled into a mist of white fur along the cobblestoned road, terrifying the passersby who were shrieking for seeing a monster.

“Oh, no!” Mya moaned. “Ghost is gone. Lya, Ghost is in the city. This… this… is bad.” She licked her lips. “Oh, stop smiling and go after her.”

“Let her stretch her legs.” I waved my hand.

“Stretch her legs? She terrified even Winterfell. These cowards will piss in their breeches. And anything bad that happens in the city will be coming back to you.”

I hummed as we picked pace to march down the road, getting a good look at the hard-working Kingslanders, who were selling baked bread, stinky wine, and a few opening up their shops enclosed around dingy and deserted alleys.

There were a few eyes that didn’t just notice the odd presence of two girls in men’s garbs but kept following us on every turn. I didn’t like being watched, followed, and goose prickles raised on my skin, for every second I felt exposed. Someone was tracking my movements. I wouldn’t put it past men like Lord Jon Connington to monitor me just so to cut my throat.

I wanted to believe my father would not let his daughter be punished, but whatever I saw of him the previous day didn’t give so much assurance.

We began roaming for an hour or so, and the streets started becoming busy, crowding with an odd mixture of sweat and scented oils. Mya vaguely pointed at various shops that sold all sorts of dresses, jewels, and even eerie animal skins, before I found a pair of gleaming ruby eyes, beckoning my presence with such intensity that I thought I might burn under it.

The eyes were the only visible part of what I saw through the dark window sills, and before I tried to get a grasp, loud snickering noises emerged out from the tilted building.

“Well, he truly fucked the witch.” A man bellowed for all the world to hear, laughing like a maniac, as he slipped out of the long brass door, carefully flanked by a few Golden cloaks at his side.

I wanted to leave the odd place, not at all interested in another encounter with any of the gold cloaks, but when I found the man’s shoulder-length hair a striking silver, my curiosity bided to me to wait and watch. He was tall, built like a warrior with dark purple eyes. I was sure Sansa would sing a song about him if she saw him.

I wondered if it was… if it could be my brother, Aegon Targaryen, the crown Prince. My deductions and thoughts crumbled down soon when he was followed by two more men, both having silver-gold hair, and all the three having high cheekbones, purple eyes, and undeniable charm in each of their handsome faces.

“Where is that pathetic loser?” The second one had a boring drawl, and he was taller than the rest. He was sipping wine in a goatskin bag, hair messed up and ruffled, boot laces untied, doublet strings carelessly tied, as though he had just awoken from the bed. By the looks of it, he did seem to have woken up from the bed, perhaps from a _woman’s_ bed.

My jaw dropped at the resemblance the man held with that of my father. There was no need for any confirmations. Even amongst the same skin-colored, and hair colored handsome men around him, his resemblance to my father, the authority in his bored voice, the ornaments made of ruby, gold, and gemstones shining on fingers, neck, and wrists, just screamed that he was the Prince.

“Has he run away, already?” The Prince questioned his companions, and they all laughed, amused. The entire city was watching them, but neither of them bothered or even seemed to care. “Craven!” He spat the wine and beckoned the guards with a wiggle of his fingers, who rushed to bring their horses. “Fuck a witch? Who does he think he challenges? Oh, don’t forget to tell him how she screamed under my fingers.”

That wasn’t what I’d expected, nor was I looking for in a man who would rule the Seven Kingdoms. Somehow my eyes drifted above to the open window where there were a pair of ruby eyes looking down upon me sometime before. Was it that woman he was slandering about on the road?

“What did he wager with?” The first one asked.

“That he will let me fuck his sister.” The Prince said with loathing. “Bartering one for what he took from me.”

Everyone laughed, as though this was more amusing than the previous jape.

“Ah, Lya! That is—“ Mya began, trying to bring her horse closer towards me.

“Yeah, I know. It is the Prince.”

“Your family discover all strange ways to welcome you. Don’t they?”

I snickered, but I wasn’t going to be seen by him. He didn’t seem to be someone I need to have any association with at all. I tried to steer from the path so that I would go unnoticed and I heard murmurs of disappointment from a few passersby, but hugely they were all amused to see one of the Royal members behaving like an unworthy idiot.

Aegon and his companions climbed on their beautiful destriers, and just when they were about to trot around the road, a stout old man, with only a few hairs on his head, who had opened his dusted sour wine shop, which I assumed to be some sort of drink for the folks who could not afford real wine, muttered something under his breath.

I couldn’t hear it, but I was sure it was not something Aegon approved of. He pulled the reins of his black destrier, and the five golden cloaks flanking Aegon abruptly stopped beside him.

Leaning haphazardly on his mount, the Prince craned his neck towards the old man and asked loudly. “What is it, old man?” The old man shivered, which he should be, as he was entirely defenseless, with tattered dirty clothes and almost ten barrels full of an odd sort of wine, that he seemed to have brewed himself. “Oh, tell aloud! Let the leal folks of King’s Landing hear your praises. And perhaps, the King inside will hear too.” Aegon smiled wickedly before he jumped down, and both his companions slid far elegantly than him, each carrying a weapon in their hand. “Come on!” He urged the seller.

“Milord! It was a slip of tongue.”

“Is it?” The Prince smiled deliciously. “What do we do to men who slip their tongue, Aurane?” He asked another one of his companions with a bow and arrow in his hand.

“Obviously, we let go of their tongues.” Lord Aurane shrugged nonchalantly.

My fingers froze. My blood boiled. I remembered the empty tip of my little finger, and I knew what it felt to be on the receiving end of injustice.

It was cruel, and my loathing for my brother grew as big as a mountain. The old man, realizing very late the meaning of the words, fell on his knees, hugging the Prince’s legs before Aegon shoved him to dirt.

“You dare laugh behind my back, old man?” Aegon bellowed, unsheathing his long sword in an extremely awkward manner. He couldn’t even hold the hilt properly, but the blade was fresh, and I didn’t have any doubts if it would cut or not. “Let this be a lesson to all of you who laugh behind my back. Let this be a lesson to anyone who calls me a royal arse.”

I didn’t know if he aimed for the man’s neck or not, but if he’d truly aimed, it was a piss poor aim, as the blade simply stuck against wooden barrels, lodged in odd angles, spilling all the wine down to the floor. As though this was another amusement, Lord Aurane stuck several of his arrows down all the barrels in the tiny stall, and the wails of that poor old merchant echoed all throughout the road.

“Three moons to brew milord. Please! Oh, please! Kill me, but leave the barrels. My children will go hungry, milord.”

“Take him to the dungeons! I don’t want to dirty my new blade with his lowborn blood.” The Prince kicked once more at the man who was holding his leg and climbed on his horse.

The Golden cloaks sprung at once into action, making the man surrender so as to walk him towards the dungeons. The wine still spilled from all the barrels wasting away and the hungry children, once the Royal party went out of sight, leaped to steal whatever of the barrels remained. The worse thing was, the three high-born men simply laughed amidst the old man’s wails as though this was just as amusing as watching a fool make a jape.

It was all an amusement for them. I remembered how the Lord Darry had got agitated at the mention of the Royal family. Now, I realized how that could be.

Perhaps I should have defended the poor old man and brought some justice. Perhaps I should have been braver. I had always thought of myself as a better person, defending the defenseless, and I’d wanted to join the Kingsguard for my brother, although after having to see him in person, I began reconsidering it.

Ghost found her way back toward us, and we left towards the castle gates, with silence and a lot of angry thoughts in my head. Still, I couldn’t stop feeling that fiery eye at the back of my neck from the windowsill.

* * *

“I searched everywhere for you, niece!” Dany frowned, administering my appearance in the tall mirror in the parlor. “Tell me you didn’t plan on running away, already.”

“No. Not yet.” I admitted, although after witnessing the sorry state of my brother, that thought did cross my mind. “I suppose it takes someone wiser than the likes of Jon Connington to send me away.”

Dany giggled as she sat on the table in front of me. She was wearing an ink dark blue velvet gown on her bodice that bared her shoulders, but the rich laces of her sleeves went with swirling patterns to touch her elbow. A silk skirt billowed beneath, all having a rich embroidery in golden threads. She oozed beauty, with jewels and an elaborate crown of a three-headed dragon on her head, crowning her already golden crown for a mane.

I could see both my father’s and brother’s resemblance in her. If truth be told… if my brother had been a better man, it was easier for the likes of me to encourage her to marry my brother. She was how a Queen should look like, and my brother was how a King should look like. But looks alone were not enough for ruling the Kingdoms. Was it? I didn’t even suspect my brother’s ability I began questioning my father’s own ruling if he couldn’t see what his son turned out to be.

“You should change your household guard, Visenya.” Dany casually suggested, as she adjusted the untameable hair of mine, which was being put together by a handmaid of Dany’s, in a sophisticated pattern that was pulling my forehead up. “He didn’t even realize you had left until I asked for him to check for you.”

“Jory?” I enquired, remembering how he became cross with me after learning I’d gone alone into the city. “It isn’t his fault. I am just better at leaving unnoticed. In Winterfell, Arya and I used to search every secret cavern in the crypts and no one could find us.” I thought morosely about my cousins, and Arya in particular, who had been cross with me for leaving her. I should write a missive to them.

“Arya? Your Stark cousin, I suppose?” Dany enquired curiously. “Tell me, my sweet niece. Why did Lord Stark truly send his daughter this far?”

I grimaced at her forwardness. But I supposed it did look quite controversial to voluntarily send his own daughter into the enemy territory. As I governed Dany’s smiling lips and cool features, I didn’t know how much should I trust her, much less to share information about my cousin’s and her mother’s. “It shows a token of faith, your Grace. Don’t you agree? After all, my uncle sent his own maiden daughter here.”

Dany snorted, half unbelieving but half interested with the way I was hiding Lady Stark’s true intention to bind her family with a wealthy lord in King’s Landing. If I told that secret, the Royal family would not feel comfortable having their once old enemies gaining any more strength. “Call me, Dany. We are family, after all. No need for any formal titles. My brother will drone on about lessons on the importance of being united as a family if you sit with him even for five minutes.” She chuckled and at the same time, forced the urge to roll her eyes to a halt. “You do believe in sticking up for the family. Don’t you?”

Would she keep asking such uncomfortable questions? Only then it dawned on me that, perhaps, she wasn’t entirely sure if she wanted to trust me. After all, the Hand of the King did make an impact in the court the previous day, and I was really not straightforward with my answers. More importantly, nobody in this family had any idea about me or why I had to come here.

Did that rational thought help me in reigning my anger?

Hell no! It sucked to keep defending my intentions to everyone. Right from the moment I entered this city, I was being asked over and over to prove my loyalty.

I was getting sick of it.

Still, Princess Daenerys, for all her outwardness, was the only person who’d welcome me. And in fact, was concerned about me, and even went beyond her limit to enquire what had happened to me when I went missing. And in her own way, she’d stood up for me in the court where even my father hadn’t done. I didn’t want to make an enemy out of her. This was why I came all the way from North. To know my family…

“Call me, Lya, Aunt Dany. That is what my family calls me. And of course, I have no agenda against my own blood. You can be sure of that.”

“ _Aunt Dany_?” She groaned, craning her neck to see the ceiling. “Oh, why do you have to stop there? Call me Gran Dany too. Your sister, Rhaenys, has that kind of dry humor. I am younger than you, for Seven’s sake.” She went in front of the mirror to adjust her hair. “Do you know, Rhaenys tells that the silver in my hair is a testament for old age. She’d read in some books that people die far earlier if they have silver in their hair.”

“But you have silver-gold hair.”

“I know…“ She whined. “Your sister, that one with all her books, likes to taunt me like that. I get these horrible dreams, you know.”

“Of dying?”

“No! More horrible… of growing old.”

I found that amusing, and she swatted my hand in a friendly manner, before dragging it to the door. “Now, let us honor the guests.”

“I am the guest.” I reasoned.

“Oh, you have to learn a lot about the court life, Lya. The feast may be held in your name, but the true guests are the cunning ones waiting for a glimpse to enter our family. Each one has a motive there. Each smile has a reason there. Each word is either a spade aimed at your chest or a weapon to wiggle into our family.”

It was as though Dany was sharing her life lessons. “Wiggle into our family?” I blanched at that odd comment.

Dany measured my face before she gave a long sigh. “Don’t worry. You have miles ahead of you to learn all of that. But I will teach you everything.”

It was at that moment, when Sansa arrived in front of the chamber door, flustered pink, breathing heavily, her properly assembled hair somewhat of a mess, but she had that cheeky grin. A small part of me felt guilty of not even visiting her chamber and entirely forgetting her when I was spending time with Dany, but Sansa paid no mind to my selfishness. She simply curtsied Dany and held my other hand.

“Where have you been to Sansa? Your hair has—“

“Oh, no!” Sansa blushed, adjusting that stranded hair behind her ear. “I searched everywhere to find your chamber, Lya. Mya wouldn’t help, and Jeyne had already left. It took me so long to locate it.”

Her cheeks grew red like fire, and I assumed she was shying away under Dany’s gaze. “I am so sorry, Lady Sansa. I hadn’t known about your arrival. Had the King mentioned it to me, I would have found something closer to us.”

“Oh, please, Your Grace. Yours is the first act of kindness that I have got since I left Winterfell.”

If I felt guilty of Sansa’s careless jibe about how the Darry’s had treated her aimed at me, I ignored feeling the impact of it. Sansa, even in her dreams, wouldn’t mean to hurt anyone intentionally. Still, I did feel a little sorry for her.

We walked steadily towards the Great Hall, accompanied by the guards, as I fretted over meeting the last person in the family—the Queen.

“Did you meet Aegon, Lya?” Dany prompted, and I vaguely nodded, a frown pasted on my lips.

“Oh, did you?” Sansa chimed in, but she blushed hard every time Dany looked at her.

“Yeah, I saw him in the morning.”

“He is kind. Don’t you think, Lya? He visited us when we were in the Maidenvault.”

 _Kind?_ Probably, he was putting on a good show in front of high-born women. I doubted if there was a bone that knew the meaning of kindness.

“Ah… That’s where he went?” Dany smiled sheepishly. “Probably, he wanted to see his sister before every one of us. You didn’t tell me how you met him in the morning, though?”

I paused, wishing they both would stop speaking about that brat, who was rejoicing in his high born status, and getting wasted away. If I’d had that chance, to be born without sin, to be a man to wield a sword without judgment, to be proud of my birth, I would have spent hours on honing my skills, learning from abled warriors, rather than abuse small folks.

“Dany, why don’t you tell me about the Queen?” I redirected to a more important conversation.

Dany did pause to observe my face, and there was no playfulness in her eyes, only lingering anger. “The Queen?”

“Queen Elia Martell.” I insisted.

_“The Queen has taken ill.”_

I turned around to find my father, walking noiseless, effortless, and calmer than I’d seen the previous day. A golden band of circlet sat on his forehead embedded with gemstones, contrasting his purple gaze as he offered his arm.

“Will I get the honor to accompany my daughter to the throne room?”

His offered hand waited in midair, and I stood there numbed as though he was addressing someone else, before Sansa gave me a nudge. One of the Kingsguards behind him made a groaning noise of snickering, and King Rhaegar denied amusing the man.

“Do you have to act like a bard to your own daughter?” The man enquired and removed his white helm that held clipped white feather plume. To my surprise or disappointment, he too had silver hair, purple eyes resembled like one of Prince Aegon’s companions I found in the morning. The thing was, this man was what the bards wrote a song about when they mentioned valiant knights.

“Now, don’t let your King down. Else, Arthur here will not let the insult slide for years to come.”

 _Ser Arthur Dayne?_ Ser Jaime had said so much about the knight a thousand times, of his prowess, of his good-heartedness, more important of all his sword-swinging skills that even my expectation looked dull to his gracefulness.

Without further thought, I took my father’s hand, although I doubted if I deserved to walk next to the King down the Hall. A sudden clench tightened in the pit of my stomach of what this would mean. It would mean I was important, special, and having good graces of my father—of the King himself.

Ser Arthur took Sansa’s hand in a polite gesture, and somehow Dany seemed to have disappeared.

I didn’t bother to look around. Dany’s guards had left too, and she surely knew better about her home than me.

“The Queen is ill?” My stomach clenched again, remembering what Prince Oberyn had warned. I didn’t want the Queen to feel I’d come here to disrespect her. I knew it was bound to happen. People had hated me ever since I was born, and I was no stranger to that. But none of the experiences gave any comfort at the moment.

“The Queen is ill and living so distant for her to attend the feast.” The King answered. His polite gaze lingered upon my features. “This feast is meant for your arrival. You shouldn’t be bothered about anything else.”

My father seemed to know what exactly was running in my head, and I hated him for doing that. He didn’t have any right to act as though he understood me. He left me to the wolves. In the literal sense…

“I appreciate your kindness, Your Grace,” I replied in what I could gather as a monotonous tone.

“Is that anger, dear child?” He chuckled.

“It isn’t… anger.“ I huffed, but my nose was glowing red, and all the emotions tumbled along like sliding in ice. “And I am not a child. I can best any man.”

“Is it, now?” He questioned curiously. “How about we arrange a tilt with Arthur?”

“But he is the Sword of the Morning.” I protested, turning around to find Ser Arthur smiling down at us, his eyes twinkling in the moonlight.

“Well, you were the one who called for a challenge, Lya.” The King clucked his tongue, and blood reached to my ears in irritation. I didn’t like that he called me ‘Lya’. I didn’t like that he presumed he knew the best of me. And I certainly didn’t like some stranger calling me a coward.

“Visenya, for you, Your Grace. I was just worried about Ser Arthur’s reputation, you see. I didn’t want him to be known as the knight who got bested by a girl.”

Ser Arthur laughed, and my father joined in it, although not wholeheartedly. The fact that all my words went down like an amusement to their ears, spurned my guts. I gritted my teeth for being made an idiot, and I wished, oh, I so wished to wield a sword just to make their mouth shut.

“I have no doubt Ser Jaime taught you well.” Ser Arthur mused as they came to a halt in front of the throne room. “And Rhaegar, she just took over everything from Ser Jaime. I remember him when he fought against the Laughing knight. You have the same arrogance, my lady.” He bowed to me. “Sorry for my choice of careless words. I am not like your father to use beautiful words. All I know is that even arrogance is beautiful when it stays with a deserving person. You must understand that it is a compliment.”

“Shove away your compliments, Arthur.” My father barked, with a long sour face. “That boy should have done what he was asked to do. He has put her in danger.”

“He did not!” I didn’t know why I got angry every time my father spoke, but to speak ill about Jaime in front of me was reaching my peak of tolerance. It was as though I was standing on the edge for every word he uttered to me. “He did everything for my sake. He helped me. I am sorry, father. But you cannot speak about Ser Jaime like that, in front of me.”

There was mourning silence, and even Ser Arthur remained quiet, simply observing us both. The King went silent and still. And I knew it was wise to apologize to the King. In fact, I had apologized to a whole set of strangers in my life, simply for existing, that it should come easily to bow before the King. But call it vanity, I didn’t. Instead of talking ill about my demeanor, King Rhaegar laughed emptily.

“Where in the Seven Hells did you see Ser Jaime in her, Arthur?” He questioned, sarcastically. My father’s voice lingered with sadness, grief, so full of pain, that I really felt guilty of causing him such trouble. I wished I didn’t exist before him. I wished I didn’t come all the way to just spit hurtful words at him. Which child would bring so much anguish in life? Wasn’t it better to disappear than to cause pain to him? “She has come back to haunt me.” His fingers gently held my cheek where a single tear slid down. “You don’t just merely look like her, Visenya.”

There was a pregnant pause, and I heard Sansa sobbing, muffling her voice. It seemed even Sansa was hurt.

“Your Grace!” Ser Arthur called the King’s attention, and he turned towards the direction where Rhaenys was arriving with her friends.

“Father! Dany told me I was to walk with Aegon.” Rhaenys almost cried.

“He is your brother, Rhaenys.”

“Can you tell me something I don’t know? I will not walk with that fool.” Rhaenys yelled.

King Rhaegar grunted. “Tell me, Arthur. Why did the Gods give me two daughters with whom I can never find my way around?”

“You are not—“ Rhaenys stuttered. “Oh!” She sauntered back, her brown orbs fixed on me. “I will find a better man then.” She decisively said with her neck held high.

“I had given you permission to do that three years ago. Please hurry in that process,” Rhaegar replied, tilting his head, and I thought Rhaenys was going to burn him down just with her fire spurn eyes.

“And Ser Arthur, he broods and wonders why his daughters hate his mighty heart, which doesn’t give a place for us in this castle!” Rhaenys blasted away, her silk clothes billowing in the evening air.

Ser Arthur Dayne chuckled, amused to see the King’s forlorn expression of brooding, and even I felt a bit relieved, even if things weren’t going in any right direction. Within seconds, the air began getting thicker with laughter and jests, as a crowd of younger men arrived, and I noticed the same set of young men that I’d found in the morning walking towards the Great Hall.

Although the Prince looked so out of form in the morning, now, in the evening, he had made a neat slicking look to his silver-gold mane and wore a thick black garment that made his dark purple eyes stand out. With a cold smile on his lopsided grin and a crown made of various stones like jade and rubies, which looked mightier than the King’s own, he walked with pride and vanity, in his every step.

“Your Grace!” He even bowed with amusement in his tone.

I didn’t think my father’s face could grimace in disgust and distaste anymore than what it was. King Rhaegar simply nodded, and to my great surprise, he even turned away to look at Dany coming from a distance, with a young, handsome man at her side.

Was King’s Landing filled with people of silver hair? Were there no normal people like me and Sansa? Because even the man she was walking with had silver-gold for hair, although lighter than my father’s.

“My Prince!” Rhaenys came to the Prince’s side. “Will I get the honor of being escorted to the Hall with you?”

“Of course, my lady! I have been searching for you, everywhere.” He told with a gritted tone.

My father, the King was extremely displeased with it. And Rhaenys threw a wicked grin at her father, knowing well that she was able to get back at him.

“I thought you were going to find a better man, Rhaenys? Have you found no man in the whole Seven Kingdoms?” The King only forgot to tell the Prince in front of me to kill himself, because if this was Aegon I didn’t think my father was going to let him live, let alone get crowned. Which brought the question…

“Oh, don’t have a doubt of that, brother. The whores of King’s landing will string a better song than you about if I was man enough for them.”

So, this must be…

“Viserys!” King Rhaegar howled, his fists clenched together.

“Your Grace!” Ser Arthur held the King’s shoulder, but they was a battle going on, brother to brother, challenging through mere gazes, and each seemed to be ready for a duel. But I doubted if my uncle would win.

How could I not guess it in the street? Of course, it was Viserys terrorizing the small folks. Perhaps the Lord Darry held contempt against my uncle.

“Father!” Aegon finally arrived at the Great Hall’s entrance, holding Dany’s hand. He wasn’t dressed as vain as Viserys, nor did he carry a crown that was larger than his father’s.

As though being melted under the sun, my father responded to Aegon, his anger vanishing, and in the next few seconds, we were walking down the Great Hall, holding silence and authority suitable for the Royal family. If I hadn’t witnessed what conspired outside, even I wouldn’t believe this family was anything sort of perfection.

People decorated in rich silks, and scented perfume, and the herald making loud announcements of the arrival of the Royal family, only loud cheers and claps were heard, as we climbed on the dais, with Kingsguards joining from all direction to encircle the King’s family.

I sat down next to King, on his left side, and Aegon, on the right side, and for one freezing second he simply scoured into me. I realized how stupid of me to think the crown Prince was fooling himself on the roads. Looking at him, even I could see the charms, the politeness, and if I knew better, I didn’t doubt he could at least swing a sword.

It took a complete moment for Aegon to withdraw his eyes from me, and I didn’t know if he held loathing in that dark gaze or simple eagerness or just indifference. Either way, it disturbed me.

“Let the feast begin!” My father raised his cup, after a short speech about unity and family, just like what Dany had said.

“For a brat who kept bruising your knee, you look lovely in that dress, Visenya!” A voice trickled into my ears, and I found Ser Jaime’s golden armor and golden hair spilling around the dark air at my side. I smiled at him, so happy to see him after a long interval. “And you have an explanation to give me why you ran away into the streets without taking Jory.” He admonished.

It was so like Jaime that I didn’t mind. But someone else did mind it. Someone else didn’t like that I was talking to Ser Jaime or that he was talking to me on the dais. My father glowered at his Kingsguard, who wore a golden armor plate and a golden helmet which was against the white Kingsguard norm to have a white overall. I knew Jaime was doing it to spit on the rules.

Either way, the King didn’t take it in a good heart, and neither did Jaime, as he left the dais with a mocking bow.


End file.
